Jarkand goiter gazelle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jarkand goiter gazelle
Jarkand goiter gazelle (Gazella yarkandensis)

Jarkand goiter gazelle ( Gazella yarkandensis )

Systematics
without rank: Forehead weapon bearer (Pecora)
Family : Horned Bearers (Bovidae)
Subfamily : Antilopinae
Tribe : Gazelle-like (antilopini)
Genre : Gazella
Type : Jarkand goiter gazelle
Scientific name
Gazella yarkandensis
Blanford , 1875

The Jarkand goiter gazelle ( Gazella yarkandensis ) is a type of gazelle within the horned bearer . It was originally regarded as a subspecies of the crop gazelle , but has been an independent species since 2011. It is a lightly built gazelle with slender limbs and sand-colored fur. Horns are mostly only worn by males. In these, the larynx is enlarged as a characteristic of the goiter gazelles . The animals are found in East Asia , where they are mostly found in northern China and Mongolia . The main landscape areas used consist of steppes and semi-deserts . Usually the animals live in small groups. Both grasses and leaves serve as food. The composition of the food varies over the year. Reproduction takes place in winter. The species was scientifically introduced in 1875. The population is at risk.

features

The Jarkand crop gazelle reaches a head-trunk length between 90 and 110 cm, a tail length of 10 to 15 cm and a shoulder height of around 69 cm. The body weight varies from 20 to 30 kg. It is a medium-sized and quite lightly built gazelle with the length of the hind legs not exceeding the shoulder. The dorsal fur has a sand-yellow color without the reddish tinge as in the crop gazelle ( Gazelle subgutturosa ). The underside and the inside of the legs are tinted lighter. The white abdomen usually extends to the base of the tail. The tail itself has a darker color and ends in a tassel. The head is also light, here the light markings on the face from the eyes to the nose are just as clear as in the crop gazelle. The mouth, however, is dark in color. The ears are very long. The males have horns curved backwards, they have horizontal rings, the number of which is usually 14, rarely 16. Their length ranges from 21 to 32 cm, the tips are 3.9 to 17.6 cm apart. The horn bases are large and rounded in cross section, the diameter is 5.8 to 7.9 cm. As a rule, females have no horns, in contrast to the crop gazelle, which has small horns. In the sand gazelle ( Gazella marica ) female individuals again have clearly developed horns. The skull becomes 21 to 22 cm long. The name-giving feature of the Jarkand goiter gazelle is the thickened larynx of the male, as in all relatives of the goiter gazelle .

distribution and habitat

The Jarkand goiter gazelle is common in East Asia. It occurs there in China , especially in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region . In a broader view, the animals from the provinces of Qinghai , Gansu , from the north of Shaanxi or from the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia , and from Mongolia also belong to the Jarkand goitered gazelle. The animals inhabit flat landscapes of steppe to semi-desert character, but can also sometimes be found in alpine grasslands. In the Qaidam Basin , the Jarkand goitered gazelle occurs at altitudes of 2700 to 3000 m. The population density of the animals in some regions of Xinjiang such as the Junggar Basin and the Kalamaili Mountains is given as 0.7 to 0.8 individuals per square kilometer.

Way of life

Territorial behavior

The behavior and way of life of the Jarkand goitered gazelle have been little researched. The animals live in small groups of up to a dozen individuals. There are both female and male groups, as well as mixed herds and single individuals. The female herds mostly also include the young animals. According to studies in the Kalamaili Nature Reserve in Xinjiang, the average group size is 5.5 individuals, it is larger in autumn and winter than in spring and summer, which may be due to the reduced amount of food in the cold season. Group sizes of more than six individuals account for less than a quarter of the observations. Large herd groups with 30 or more individuals often take place in the summer during the hottest phase. The animals then jointly use the few water sources in the desert-like landscapes.

The Jarkand goiter gazelle is largely diurnal. She spends a large part of her daily budget on food, followed by rest and hiking. In the case of female animals, eating and resting take up almost half of their activities in summer, while in winter they spend more time eating (almost 70%) and rest significantly less. As a result, females only eat twice a day in summer (morning and evening) and take a long period of rest in between. The rest of the year they eat three times a day (morning, noon and evening) with correspondingly shorter rest breaks. In the case of male animals, on the other hand, food intake and rest periods are markedly reduced in winter; both activities only take up around 30% of active time. On the other hand, hiking activities and, above all, attention increase significantly. The change is causally related to the pairing that takes place during this time. Males maintain the mode of feeding three times a day all year round.

nutrition

The main food of the Jarkand goiter gazelle consists of grasses , herbs and leaves , so they feed on mixed vegetable food ( mixed feeder ). In the Kalamaili Nature Reserve, the diet consists of 34.2 to 43.4% woody plants, 16.8 to 31.1% grass and 25.6 to 41.9% herbs. The food spectrum includes around 47 different plant species, among them mainly sweet grasses and goosefoot plants . The composition of the food varies over the year. The highest diversity of ingested plants is reached in spring. The main component is made up of feather grasses , which are eaten all year round. In summer they make up more than a fifth of the amount of food, in autumn and winter their share is reduced by half and falls to a minimum in spring. The shrub plant Ceratoides is an important part of the diet, mainly in spring and summer . In autumn and winter, the Jarkand goitered gazelle also increasingly eats Saxaul . Other plants such as leeks , yoke leaves and salt herbs play an important role in summer. In some regions the Jarkand goitered gazelle competes for food with grazing animals such as domestic goats and domestic sheep . In the Kalamaili nature reserve there is an overlap of over 75% in diet with the latter.

Reproduction

During the mating season from October to December, the males leave the mixed groups and establish their own territory . This significantly increases the proportion of all-female herds. As with all crop gazelles, the thickened larynx of the males increases their rutting call. Females between the ages of three and seven often give birth to twins, while older and younger animals give birth to individual cubs.

Systematics

The Jarkand goiter gazelle is a species of the genus Gazella within the family of the horned bearers (Bovidae). The genus Gazella stands within the horned bearers in the subfamily of the Antilopinae and the tribe of the gazelle-like (Antilopini). The closest relatives of the Jarkand goiter gazelle are the goiter gazelle ( Gazella subgutturosa ), the Turkmenistan goiter gazelle ( Gazella gracilicornis ) and the sand gazelle ( Gazella marica ). They are together with some other forms such as dunes gazelle ( Gazella leptoceros ) and the Cuvier's gazelle ( Gazella cuvieri ) in the so-called Gazella subgutturosa classified group. The graceful physique with the slender legs of equal length, so that a straight back is created, and the eponymous enlargement of the larynx are to be regarded as special characteristics of the immediate relationship of the crop gazelle. The latter is developed in both sexes, but is more evident in the males.

Originally, the Jarkand goiter gazelle and the sand gazelle were considered subspecies of the goiter gazelle, while the Turkmenistan goiter gazelle was synonymous with the latter. Most systematics assigned a total of four subspecies to the goiter gazelle, in addition to the nominate form , the "Persian goiter gazelle" ( G. s. Subgutturosa ), and the Jarkand goiter gazelle ( G. s. Yarkandensis ) and the sand gazelle ( G. s. Marica ) also the "Mongolian goiter gazelle" ( G. s. hilleriana ). Other, often Chinese, authors also made a distinction between the "Tibetan goiter gazelle" ( G. s. Reginae ), the "Djungarian goiter gazelle" ( G. s. Sairensis ) and the "Seistan goiter gazelle" ( G. s. Saistanica ). A systematic revision of the horned gazelle by Colin P. Groves and Peter Grubb in 2011 recognized the sand gazelle, the Jarkand goiter gazelle and the Turkmenistan goiter gazelle as separate species in addition to the actual goiter gazelle ("Persian goiter gazelle"). This was done largely on a morphological basis using different skull and horn dimensions. The "Mongolian goiter gazelle" was considered to be identical to the Jarkand goiter gazelle. The data situation is not so clear for the “Tibetan” and the “Djungarian goiter gazelle”, but the two authors temporarily referred them to the Jarkand goiter gazelle as well. The "Seistan goiter gazelle" was already considered to be identical to the actual goiter gazelle.

William Thomas Blanford

Molecular genetic studies have shown that the Jarkand goiter gazelle is actually most closely related to the goiter gazelle. The extinct Saudi gazelle ( Gazella saudiya ) and the Indian gazelle ( Gazella bennetti ) may also belong to this community complex . In contrast, the sand gazelle of the Arabian Peninsula is much closer to the Cuvier gazelle and the dune gazelle, both of which have an African distribution area. In genetic analyzes of cytochrome b of goiter gazelles from their entire northwestern Chinese distribution area (Xinjiang Autonomous Region), there was a relatively low diversity with hardly any population structure, but with a relatively high number of haplotypes , even if studies on individual populations gave a different picture. Another genetic study of goiter gazelles from Xinjiang and from the west bordering area of ​​Central Asia, this time including the mitochondrial control region , then identified various clades within the goiter gazelles of northwestern China. According to the results, the northern and southern populations in Xinjiang each form separate taxonomic units that are subject to a certain gene flow . The Central Asian goiter gazelles can also be viewed as an independent group. However, since the study did not also include animals from Mongolia and northern China located further to the east, the authors refrained from a more precise classification and referred to further genetic analyzes that were still to be carried out.

The scientific first description of the Jarkand goiter gazelle was in 1875 by William Thomas Blanford under the name Gazella subgutturosa , var. Yarkandensis . Blanford emphasized the less curved horns and the clearer facial markings compared to the goitered gazelle in Central Asia. As a type area he gave the eastern Turkestan . It was only around 40 years later that Richard Lydekker specified this more precisely with the plains of Yarkant . The "Mongolian Goitered Gazelle" was named Gazella hilleriana by Pierre Heude in 1894 , although Glover Morrill Allen did not refer to Mongolian animals until 1940 . Lydekker then introduced Gazella subgutturosa sairensis in 1900, the "Jungian goitered gazelle", which is characterized by its short, little ringed horns and minimal facial markings. GP Adlerberg is again approached by the “Tibetan goiter gazelle”, which he defined in 1931 as Gazella subgutturosa reginae based on animals from the Qaidam basin in the Chinese province of Qinghai .

Threat and protection

The IUCN does not list the Jarkand goiter gazelle as a separate species, but as a subspecies of the goiter gazelle. The nature conservation organization regards their entire population as "endangered" ( vulnerable ), whereby the main dangers for the population are to be found in illegal hunting and habitat loss through the expansion of agricultural and grazing areas or through infrastructure measures such as road and rail construction. In China , the species is also worthy of protection. It occurs in various nature reserves, including the Kalamaili Nature Reserve in the Chinese autonomous region of Xinjiang. Here, however, individual natural disasters also have an impact on the population. In the winter of 2010, numerous Jarkand goitre gazelles died from hunger and disease or froze to death during a snow chaos.

literature

  • Colin P. Groves and David M. Leslie Jr .: Family Bovidae (Hollow-horned Ruminants). In: Don E. Wilson and Russell A. Mittermeier (eds.): Handbook of the Mammals of the World. Volume 2: Hooved Mammals. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona 2011, ISBN 978-84-96553-77-4 , p. 639

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Colin P. Groves and David M. Leslie Jr .: Family Bovidae (Hollow-horned Ruminants). In: Don E. Wilson and Russell A. Mittermeier (eds.): Handbook of the Mammals of the World. Volume 2: Hooved Mammals. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona 2011, ISBN 978-84-96553-77-4 , p. 639
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Steven C. Kingswood and David A. Blank: Gazella subgutturosa. Mammalian Species 158, 1996, pp. 1-10
  3. ↑ a b c John MacKinnon: Order Artiodactyla. In: Andrew T. Smith, Yan Xie, Robert S. Hoffmann, Darrin Lunde, John MacKinnon, Don E. Wilson and W. Chris Wozencraft (Eds.): A Guide to the Mammals of China. Princeton University Press, 2008, pp. 451-481
  4. ↑ Guiquan Cai, Yongsheng Liu and Bart W. O'Gara: Observations of large mammals in the Qaidam Basin and its peripheral mountainous areas in the People's Republic of China. Canadian Journal of Zoology 68, 1990, pp. 2021-2024
  5. ^ Sun Ming-Juan, Gao Xing-Yi, Ablimit Abdukadir and Shao Ming-Qin: Study trends about Gazella subgutturosa. Arid Zone Research 19, 2002, pp. 75-80
  6. ↑ a b Qiao Jianfang, Yang Weikang Xu Wenxuan, Xia cajun, Liu Wei and David Blank: Social Structure of Goitred gazelles Gazella subgutturosain Xinjiang, China. Pakistan Journal of Zoology 43 (4), 2011, pp. 769-775
  7. ↑ Xia Canjun, Xu Wenxuan, Yang Weikang, David Blank, Qiao Jianfang and Liu Wei: Seasonal and sexual variation in vigilance behavior of goitered gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa) in western China. Journal of Ethology 29, 2011, pp. 443-451
  8. ↑ Xia Canjun, Yang Weikang, David Blank, Xu Wenxuan, Qiao Jianfang and Liu Wei: Diurnal time budget of goitred gazelles (Gazella subgutturosa Güldenstaedt, 1780) in Xinjiang, China. Mammalia 75, 2011, pp. 235-242
  9. ↑ Xu Wenxuan, Xia Canjun, Lin Jie, Yang Weikang, David A. Blank, Qiao Jianfang and Liu Wei: Diet of Gazella subgutturosa (Güldenstaedt, 1780) and food overlap with domestic sheep in Xinjiang, China. Folia Zoologica 61 (1), 2012, pp. 54-60
  10. ↑ Don E. Wilson and DeeAnn M. Reeder (eds.): Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005 ( [1] )
  11. ↑ a b Shamshidin Abduriyim, Guzalnur Zibibulla, Subinur Eli, Zorigul Ismayil and Mahmut Halik: Phylogeny and genetic structure of the goitered gazelle (Artiodactyla, Bovidae) in north-Western China indicated by the hypervariable mitochondrial control region. Systematics and Biodiversity 16 (6), 2018, pp. 527-537, doi: 10.1080 / 14772000.2018.1470583
  12. ↑ Colin Groves and Peter Grubb: Ungulate Taxonomy. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011, pp. 1–317 (SS 163–165)
  13. ^ Robert L. Hammond, William Macasero, Benito Flores, Osama B. Mohammed, Tim Wacher and Michael W. Bruford: Phylogenetic reanalysis of the Saudi gazelle and its implications for conservation. Conservation Biology 15 (4), 2001, pp. 1123-1133
  14. ↑ Alexandre Hassanin, Frédéric Delsuc, Anne Ropiquet, Catrin Hammer, Bettine Jansen van Vuuren, Conrad Matthee, Manuel Ruiz-Garcia, François Catzeflis, Veronika Areskoug, Trung Thanh Nguyen and Arnaud Couloux: Pattern and timing of diversification of Cetartiodactalia, Lauriala (Mammia ), as revealed by a comprehensive analysis of mitochondrial genomes. Comptes Rendus Palevol 335, 2012, pp. 32-50
  15. ↑ Fayasal Bibi: A multi-calibrated mitochondrial phylogeny of extant Bovidae (Artiodactyla, Ruminantia) and the importance of the fossil record to systematics. BMC Evolutionary Biology 13, 2013, p. 166
  16. ^ Eva Verena Bärmann, Gertrud Elisabeth Rössner and Gert Wörheide: A revised phylogeny of Antilopini (Bovidae, Artiodactyla) using combined mitochondrial and nuclear genes. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 67 (2), 2013, pp. 484-493
  17. ↑ Hannes Lerp, Sebastian Klaus, Stefanie Allgöwer, Torsten Wronski, Markus Pfenninger and Martin Plath: Phylogenetic analyzes of gazelles reveal repeated transitions of key ecological traits and provide novel insights into the origin of the genus Gazella. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 98, 2016, pp. 1-10
  18. ↑ Shamshidin Abduriyim, Azizjan Nabi and Mahmut Halik: Low Genetic Diversity in the Goitered Gazelle Gazella subgutturosa (Güldenstädt, 1780) (Artiodactyla: Bovidae) in North-Western China as Revealed by the Mitochondrial Cytochrome b Gene. Acta Zoologica Bulgarica 70 (2), 2018, pp. 211-218
  19. ↑ a b Dong Tangchen, Chu Hongjun, Chen Yong, Wu Hongpan, He Lei and Ge Yan: Genetic diversity and phylogenetic status of Gazella subgutturosa at Mountain Kalamaili Ungulate Nature Reserve, Xinjiang. Acta Theriologica Sinica 36 (1), 2016, pp. 77-86
  20. ↑ Buzohra Tursun, Shamshidin Abduriyim, Zilajigvl Ekram, Aynur Abdigini and Mahmut Halik: Genetic diversity analysis of Gazella subgutturosa yarkandensis using microsatellite markers. Journal of Arid Land Resources and Environment 28, 2016, pp. 132-137
  21. ↑ Tajigul Turap, Ezizjan Nabi, Ning Li-Qun and Mahmut Halik: Genetic diversity of Gazella subgutturosa based on mitochondrial DNA d-loop sequence in Xinjiang Ebinur Lake. China Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine 43, 2016, pp. 114-120
  22. ^ William Thomas Blanford: List of Mammalia collected by the late Dr. Stoliczka when attached to the embassy under Sir D. Forsyth in Kashmir, Ladak, eastern Turkestan, and Wakhan, with descriptions of new species. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 44 (2), 1875, pp. 105-112 ( [2] )
  23. ^ Richard Lydekker and Gilbert Blaine: Catalog of the ungulate mammals in the British Museum (Natural History). Volume 3. London, 1914, pp. 1–283 (pp. 46–47) ( [3] )
  24. ^ Richard Lydekker: The great and small game of India, Burma, & Tibet. London, 1900, pp. 1–416 (p. 184) ( [4] )
  25. ^ IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group: Gazella subgutturosa. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2017. e.T8976A50187422 ( [5] ); last accessed on January 19, 2020