ALiens from EARTH

Saiga Antelope

The Saiga Antelope originally inhabited a vast region of the Eurasian steppe zone. Their range once went from the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains and Caucasus to Dzungaria and Mongolia.

The dominant species of this animal is currently found in just one location in Russia and three areas in Kazakhstan. Some of the animals located in the Ustiurt region of Kazakhstan migrate south to Uzbekistan and as far as Turkmenistan in winter.

The Saiga antelope is extinct in China and Mongolia. Due to extensive hunting in Romania and Moldova, it is extinct in those areas as well. A Mongolian subspecies is all that remains in Mongolia.

They have an unusual hanging nose, which makes them look like a camel, although they are goat-sized, and male saigas have horns.

The saiga antelope typically forms rather large herds that will graze in various landscapes including steppes, semi-desert, grasslands and sometimes open woodlands.

Their diet consists mostly of several plant species as well as some that are poisonous to other animals. Their range is also vast as these animals can cover great distances. They will swim across rivers, but tend to shy away from steep or rugged regions.

Saiga antelopes have a head and body length of between 3 and 5.6-feet. Their tail can be between 2.4 and 5.2-inches in length and they can have a shoulder height of 2 to 2.6-feet. Depending on the sex and age, saiga antelopes can weigh between 57 and 152-pounds.

They have a very unusual looking face with a large, inflatable nose that makes them look a bit like a camel although the body structure of the saiga strongly suggests a similarity to small sheep. Saiga antelope also have long, spindly legs that aid in their speedy travel.

Their coat is a cinnamon buff to yellowish red in color and somewhat lighter on the under belly. During the summer, the coat is thinner and light while during winter it becomes thick and denser. It is also almost twice as long in the winter and almost 70% thicker than the summer coat. Their waxy-colored horns are semi-translucent and grow to between 8 and 10-inches in length. They contain several rings around the bottom two-thirds of their length.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) Concerning Conservation, Restoration and Sustainable Use of the Saiga Antelope was concluded and put into effect in September 2006. It was under the auspices of the Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals (the Bonn Convention).

The decline in the saiga antelope population has been identified as one of the fastest population collapses of large mammals in recent memory. The MoU was developed to assist in reducing the exploitation of the animal and to restore its population in Central Asia.