🦌Saiga antelope
The saiga antelope or saiga is a species of antelope which during antiquity inhabited a vast area of the Eurasian steppe, spanning the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in the northwest and Caucasus in the southwest into Mongolia in the northeast and Dzungaria in the southeast. During the Pleistocene, it ranged across the mammoth steppe from the British Isles to Beringia. Today, the dominant subspecies only occurs in Kalmykia and Astrakhan Oblast of Russia and in the Ural Mountains, Ustyurt Plateau and Betpak-Dala regions of Kazakhstan. A portion of the Ustyurt population migrates south to Uzbekistan and occasionally to Turkmenistan in winter. It is regionally extinct in Romania, Ukraine, Moldova, China and southwestern Mongolia. The Mongolian subspecies occurs only in western Mongolia.
Text: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
IUCN Red List assessment, 2023.
- Body mass
- 38 kg
- Body length
- 1.28 m
- Shoulder height
- not recorded
- Top speed
- not recorded
- Bite force
- not recorded
- Maximum lifespan
- 12 years
Everything we know about the Saiga antelope
Typical adult figures. Where a value is an estimate rather than a measurement, it says so.
Body mass38 kgCOMBINEOther figures ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Figures vary
- 38 kgAnAgeAnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR)data quality: low
Body length1.28 mCOMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Brain mass92 gCOMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Maximum lifespan12 yearsCOMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Generation length4.65 yearsCOMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Age at maturity333 daysCOMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Gestation149 daysCOMBINEOther figures ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Figures vary
- 152 daysAnAgeAnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR)data quality: low
Litter sizeabout 2COMBINEOther figures ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Figures vary
- 1.7AnAgeAnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR)data quality: low
Trophic levelHerbivoreCOMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Activity cycleCrepuscular / mixedCOMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Population density0.75 per km²COMBINEDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: COMBINE · v1 (Soria et al. 2021) · CC BY 4.0
Volume l38 LaverageDetails ↓Hide ↑
Body mass at ~1.0 kg/L, the density of vertebrate tissue.
average = a mean across sexes or species in a group.
Not recorded for Saiga antelope yet: shoulder height, top speed, bite force.
Family tree
- kingdomAnimalia
- ›phylumChordata
- ›classMammalia
- ›orderArtiodactyla
- ›familyBovidae
- ›genusSaiga
- ›speciesSaiga tatarica
- classMammals · Mammalia
- orderEven-toed hoofed animals · Artiodactyla
- familyBovidae
- genusSaiga
All 15 branches ↓Fewer branches ↑
- kingdomMetazoa
- phylumChordata
- subphylumCraniata
- subphylumVertebrata
- superclassGnathostomata
- superclassSarcopterygii
- superclassTetrapoda
- classMammals · Mammalia
- subclassTheria
- superorderLaurasiatheria
- orderEven-toed hoofed animals · Artiodactyla
- suborderRuminantia
- infraorderPecora
- familyBovidae
- genusSaiga
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