Ourebia ourebi
The oribi is a small antelope found in eastern, southern and western Africa. The sole member of its genus, it was described by the German zoologist Eberhard August Wilhelm von Zimmermann in 1783. While this is the only member in the genus Ourebia, eight subspecies are identified. The oribi reaches nearly 50–67 centimetres (20–26 in) at the shoulder and weighs 12–22 kilograms (26–49 lb). It possesses a slightly raised back, and long neck and limbs. The glossy, yellowish to rufous brown coat contrasts with the white chin, throat, underparts and rump. Only males possess horns; the thin, straight horns, 8–18 centimetres (3.1–7.1 in) long, are smooth at the tips and ringed at the base.

Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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- Also called
- oribiPBDB
- Sits inside
- OurebiaPBDB
- 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 2.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
26 occurrences of Ourebia ourebi on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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
26 occurrences- Pleistocene54%
- Holocene46%
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
2 formations
- Nubia Formation2
- Swartkrans Formation · Transvaal Group1
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The named rock units Ourebia ourebi has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 23 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Ourebia ourebi and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Ourebia ourebi and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
377 taxa- Phacochoerus aethiopicus15 sites
- Tragelaphus scriptus15 sites
- Alcelaphus buselaphus13 sites
- Equus quagga burchelli13 sites
- Potamochoerus porcus11 sites
- Redunca fulvorufula11 sites
- Syncerus caffer11 sites
- Bovidae10 sites
- Eudorcas thomsoni10 sites
- Oreotragus oreotragus10 sites
- Raphicerus campestris10 sites
- Sylvicapra grimmia10 sites
- Connochaetes taurinus9 sites
- Hippopotamus amphibius9 sites
- Suidae9 sites
- Taurotragus oryx9 sites
- Tragelaphus strepsiceros9 sites
- Hystrix africaeaustralis8 sites
- Loxodonta africana8 sites
- Mammalia8 sites
- Panthera leo8 sites
- Chlorocebus aethiops7 sites
- Hippotragus equinus7 sites
- Kobus ellipsiprymnus7 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 25 sites for Ourebia ourebi, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
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
14 references- Implications of Late Quaternary mammalian fauna from Lukenya Hill (South-Central Kenya) for paleoenvironmental change and faunal extinctions7
- The Late Prehistory of the Eastern Sahel2
- Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers at Ishango (eastern Zaire): the faunal evidence2
- Les faunes de vertebres quaternaires en Afrique centrale2
- Later Stone Age Faunal Samples from Heuningneskrans Shelter (Transvaal) and Leopard's Hill Cave (Zambia)2
- A revision of the faunal remains from two central Sudanese sites: Khartoum Hospital and Esh Shaheinab2
- The Prehistory of Eastern Zambia2
- The use of fish remains in African archaeozoology1
- The Structure and Dynamics of a West African Savanna1
- The Middle Stone Age at Klasies River Mouth in South Africa1
- Serengeti: Dynamics of an Ecosystem1
- The Mammalian Fauna from the Middle and Later Stone Age (Later Pleistocene) Levels of Border Cave, Natal Province, South Africa1
Each of the 26 occurrences 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. 2 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Ourebia ourebi
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Structured light scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Ourebia ourebi · FMNH:Mammals:60546
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Oribi”
- 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 itOurebia through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Zimmerman 1783)