Arabian Oryx
From Encyclopedia Jr, free information reference for Kids
Conservation status: Endangered |
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| Oryx leucoryx |
The Arabian Oryx (Oryx leucoryx) was found in
Arabian Oryx stand about a metre high at the shoulder and weigh around 70 kilograms. Their coats are an almost luminous white, their undersides and legs are brown, and there are black stripes where the head meets the neck, on the forehead, on the nose and going from the horn down through the eye to the mouth. Both sexes have long straight ringed horns which reach just over half a metre.
Arabian Oryx eat buds, grass and leaves. Arabian Oryx rest during the heat of the day and can detect rainfall and will move towards it, this means that they have huge ranges, a herd in Oman ranges over 3,000 square kilometres. Herds are of mixed sex and contain between two and fifteen animals.
Arabian Oryx were hunted to extinction in the wild by 1972. However a breeding program in zoos around the world brought them back from the brink and a hundred animals have been reintroduced in Oman, Jordan, Qatar and Israel, with six hundred more in captivity.
The Bible uses the
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Participants at 4th International Conservation Workshop for the Threatened Fauna of Arabia (2003). Oryx leucoryx. 2006