Oryx dammah

The scimitar oryx, also known as the scimitar-horned oryx and the Sahara oryx, is an Oryx species that was once widespread across North Africa and parts of West and Central Africa. In 2000, it was declared extinct in the wild on the IUCN Red List, but in 2023, it was downlisted to endangered, with a reintroduced population in Chad. This particular oryx is adapted to harsh desert conditions and can survive for months without drinking water. A grazing animal, it derives most of its daily moisture intake from plants.

Oryx dammah

Albinfo · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
OryxPBDB
Diet
grazer, browserPBDB, for Bovidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Bovidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Artiodactyla

Time the record covers

At most 12 thousand years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 0 of 1 occurrenceHolocene — about 1 of 1 occurrence17 ka–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence512 ka0 Mya

1 occurrence of Oryx dammah on record, most of them in the Holocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

1 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Nubia — 23.00°N, 25.50°E

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The named rock units Oryx dammah has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Oryx dammah and its relatives

Holocene

Where Oryx dammah and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.

Found in the same rock

12 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Oryx dammah, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Oryx dammah

Credit
Albinfo
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Structured light scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Oryx dammah · MNHN:ZM:AC-1972-106

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itOryx through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cretzschmar 1827