General · EdgepediaSeptember 17, 20267 min read

Gazelle

A gazelle is a small to medium-sized, fast-running antelope of the bovid tribe Antilopini, adapted chiefly to deserts and dry savannas of Africa and Asia. The name is used loosely: molecular work shows that animals called gazelles are spread across several genera, chiefly Gazella, Nanger, and Eudorcas, together with relatives such as the blackbuck, springbok, gerenuk, saiga, and the Asian genus Procapra¹.

Key fact	Detail
Group	Tribe Antilopini, subfamily Antilopinae, family Bovidae; about 22 species of gazelles and close relatives across African and Asian deserts and savannas¹^•²
Core genera	Gazella, Nanger, and Eudorcas (together "Gazella s.l."), plus the Asian Procapra; the blackbuck (Antilope cervicapra) falls inside this group¹
Origin	The genus Gazella most likely emerged in the Middle East during the Late Miocene to Pliocene, roughly 10 to 3 million years ago³
Signature behavior	Stotting, a stiff-legged bounce with all four hooves off the ground, shown when predators are detected⁴^•⁵
Extinct species	Saudi gazelle (Gazella saudiya) and Yemen or Queen of Sheba's gazelle (Gazella bilkis) are listed as Extinct⁶
Most threatened	Dama gazelle (Nanger dama) is Critically Endangered, with an estimated 100 to 150 animals in three isolated populations²

Taxonomy: what a "gazelle" actually is

The tribe Antilopini has been described as one of the least understood groups of bovids, and the word "gazelle" has no strict taxonomic boundary. Within Antilopina, the blackbuck genus Antilope and the three gazelle genera Nanger, Eudorcas, and Gazella always form a natural group, but taxa commonly called gazelles are recovered as paraphyletic (a group that excludes some descendants of a shared ancestor): the genus Gazella appears more closely related to the Indian blackbuck than to the other two gazelle genera¹. An earlier mitochondrial study had reached a compatible result, finding Antilope cervicapra nested within Gazella, which would either make Gazella paraphyletic or require renaming⁷.

Hassanin and colleagues divided Antilopini into four subgroups: Antilopina (blackbuck, Gazella, Nanger, Eudorcas, springbok, dibatag, gerenuk, and saiga), Procaprina (the three Procapra species of Asia), Ourebina (the oribi, alone in its genus), and Raphicerina (steenbok, grysbok, beira, and dik-diks)¹. The older grouping "Neotragini", which united small short-horned species with the gazelle relatives, is now known to be polyphyletic¹.

Species limits remain under active revision. The mountain gazelle (Gazella gazella) was long treated as including Arabian Peninsula populations, but genetic work supports two lineages, a northern clade (G. gazella) and a southern clade provisionally named G. arabica, an arrangement now followed by the IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group⁸. The IUCN currently recognizes gazelles and close relatives as 22 species, and notes that the taxonomy is kept under constant review².

Evolution and fossil record

The earliest fossil bovids clearly attributable to a living clade are early Middle Miocene gazelles from Fort Ternan, which belong to Antilopini¹. A comprehensive mitochondrial-genome analysis traced three successive phases of rapid gazelle diversification during the late Neogene. The first began at the Middle Miocene/Late Miocene boundary, between 12.0 ± 1.6 and 11.0 ± 1.5 million years ago, when Antilopini split into four lineages: the Asian Procaprina and the African Antilopina, Raphicerina, and Ourebina. The authors link this diversification to the spread of more open habitats, noting that bovid species adapted to deserts come from Antilopini, Caprini, and Hippotragini⁹.

For the genus Gazella itself, a multi-locus phylogeny of all extant species estimated emergence in the Late Miocene to Pliocene, between 10 and 3 million years ago, and a dispersal-extinction-cladogenesis model identified the Middle East as the most likely area of origin³. This agrees with the observation that Gazella has been the most species-rich and widespread genus in Antilopini, occurring throughout Africa and Eurasia¹⁰.

Behavior and ecology

Stotting. Gazelles are known for stotting (also called pronking), bouncing into the air with all four hooves off the ground⁴. In the classic study of Thomson's gazelle, of many proposed functions only two were satisfactorily supported: stotting appears to inform the predator that it has been detected, without inviting or deterring pursuit⁵. A six-year study of the goitered gazelle found stotting was the most common alarm behavior, more frequent than alarm urination-defecation or hissing, and that its main function was likely teaching young to escape predators, with messages for both conspecifics and predators¹¹.

Social traits tied to habitat. Comparative analysis across the Gazella phylogeny found group size largely congruent with movement patterns: species forming large groups tended to be migratory, while small group size correlated with a sedentary lifestyle. Two other traits, twinning versus exclusive singleton births and hornless versus horned females, did not follow this trend³.

Desert life. Many gazelles are extreme desert dwellers. The dorcas gazelle can go its entire life without drinking water, obtaining all it needs from plants, and in the Negev Desert it feeds on Madonna lilies, digging in sand for the bulb¹². Dorcas gazelles, with other ungulates, are the primary seed dispersers for Acacia plants between the Red Sea and Israel¹². The dama gazelle, the largest gazelle at 40 to 86 kg and about 99 cm at the shoulder, gets most of its water from desert shrubs, acacias, and rough grasses⁴.

Conservation

Most antelopes, gazelles included, have suffered substantial declines in range and numbers over the last 150 years, especially the last 75⁶. Two gazelle species are extinct: the Saudi gazelle, not seen in the wild for decades and shown by genetic analysis to survive in no captive collection, and the Yemen gazelle, known only from 1950s specimens near Ta'izz and of doubtful validity². The Red gazelle of Algeria is no longer regarded as a valid species and is no longer assessed².

Critically Endangered species. The dama gazelle has lost more than 98 percent of its former Sahel and Sahara-margin range; the Antelope Specialist Group estimates 100 to 150 animals remain in three isolated populations², while the Smithsonian's National Zoo cites roughly 400 remaining in the wild after a precipitous 20-year drop⁴.

Endangered species. The mountain gazelle was assessed as Endangered in 2016 because its population fell from about 10,000 in 2001 to roughly 3,000 in 2013, a decline of at least 70 percent over three generations, driven by poaching, road kills, and habitat degradation and fragmentation; about 5,000 persist in Israel, the species' last stronghold⁸^•¹³. The slender-horned gazelle of the Sahara and Speke's gazelle of Somalia are also listed as Endangered⁶. In Asia, Przewalski's gazelle of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is Endangered and considered one of the most endangered ungulates, reduced to fragmented populations near Qinghai Lake with low genetic diversity¹⁴.

Human uses and conflicts. Goitered gazelles are hunted for meat and hide, a single animal yielding 12 to 18 kg of meat and 0.6 to 0.7 square meters of hide, and are also pursued for sport; they occasionally damage crops such as cotton and compete with domestic sheep for pasture¹⁵. Mass-kill hunting by early agricultural societies contributed to the extirpation of the Persian (goitered) gazelle from the northern Levant¹⁶. Regionally, the IUCN recommends that North African and Arabian gazelles, which evolved separately, be conserved and managed separately to preserve their genetic integrity¹⁷.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Life and health › Animals › Vertebrates › Mammals › Ungulates › Cattle and bovines

Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 21, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 21, 2026 · Last review: Oct 21, 2026

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