Capra nubiana

Geographic Range

Capra nubiana , or the Nubian ibex, is the only ibex species adapted to life in hot, arid regions of the world. Capra nubiana was once widespread in the mountainous regions of northeastern Africa and the Middle East. Estimates of the full extent of this geographic range are based on ancient drawings and bone remnants. Presently, C. nubiana occurs in isolated populations in pockets of the coastal regions of northeastern Africa, the Sinai Peninsula, and the southeastern tip and western portion of the Arabian Peninsula.

• Biogeographic Regions
• palearctic palearctic
  • native native

Habitat

Nubian ibex inhabit mountainous regions including gorges, outcrops, and scree areas in arid regions with sparse vegetation. They occur at varying elevations, from sea level to 3,000 meters. Generally, Nubian ibex inhabit the most remote, highest, and steepest cliffs.

• Habitat Regions
• temperate temperate
• terrestrial terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• desert or dune desert or dune
• mountains mountains

Physical Description

Nubian ibex are one of the smallest ibex species and are sexually dimorphic. A female ibex is, on average, about one-third the size of a male. Males have an average weight of 62.5 kg, females average 26.5 kg. Shoulder height averages 75 cm in males and 65 cm in females. Total body length is 125 cm in males and 105 cm in females.

The overall color of Capra nubiana individuals is a uniform tan (matching the surrounding rocky arid environs) with patches of black and white on the legs and a white underbelly. There is a color change that begins in August, where males become dark brown to black on their necks, chests, shoulders, sides of the belly, front side of the thighs, and upper forelegs. Males have long dark beards, which are used for scent marking and to excite the females during rutting. Older females also grow beards.

Both males and females have horns, which are used for fighting, sexual selection, and territorial defense. A male’s horns are large, dark, and semi-circular, with annual rings on the back. The annuli grow twelve to twenty centimeters during the first five years of life, and then grow between two to four centimeters per year thereafter. Total length of the horns may reach 120 cm. The horns on an individual may have shorter annuli because of physical hardships during periods of drought or disease. The horn length in females reaches around 35 cm.

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic endothermic
• homoiothermic
• bilateral symmetry bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• male larger
• sexes colored or patterned differently
• male more colorful
• ornamentation ornamentation

Reproduction

During most of the year females and their young, as well as males under three years old remain in isolated herds of ten to twenty individuals. Adult males congregate in bachelor groups, displaying a marked system of dominance hierarchy. Males and females come together for the rutting season around October. The rutting season may continue into December. The mating system is polygynous, with only a few males siring many of the young.

Throughout most of the year older males are solitary. They join females during the rut and try to drive off other males. Males will follow individual females and try to disrupt female herds. During the rut courting males seldom feed and expend much energy fighting or mating, resulting in severe deterioration of their physical condition. Both sexes exhibit crouching behaviors, tongue-flicking, and scent marking on the tail, beard and chest as part of their reproductive behavior. Reproductive success of male goats is directly correlated with body strength and horn size. Males often engage in forceful fights, whereby they crash against one another with their horns and try to overpower their opponents. Nubian ibex will erect the long dark hairs of the back while fighting. Females typically mate two or three times during estrous, which typically lasts 24 hours. Males will often become excited during the rutting season, and spontaneous ejaculation has been reported, as well as masturbation via taking the penis tip in their mouths.

• Mating System
• polygynous polygynous

Gestation lasts 150 to 165 days, after which the young (usually one, but occasionally two) are born between May and June. Females reach sexual maturity at two years, and males at age three to six. For the first several days of their life, the kids are in hiding before joining their mother.

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous iteroparous
• seasonal breeding seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual sexual
• viviparous viviparous

Nubian ibex exhibit a high degree of parental investment in their offspring. Time to weaning averages two months. Over this period the females nurse their young daily and gradually teach them to forage independently and establish their position in the social hierarchy. Female ibex will only nurse their own offspring and are hostile to alien kids or females. This is presumably a result of the high reproductive effort that mothers invest in their offspring.

Most species of ungulates in mountainous regions depend on steep terrain to avoid predation. A grouping pattern unique to Nubian ibex among all other caprines has been observed in herds in the Avedat Canyon in Israel. Females leave their kids unattended in nursery groups in a steep-walled canyon with many other kids. The nursery is most likely an accidental trap that the kids have fallen into and cannot surmount the cliff walls to climb out. Mothers visit the nursery often to feed the kids, which stay in the nursery until they are mature enough to follow along on the steep cliffs.

• Parental Investment
• precocial precocial
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female

Lifespan/Longevity

The oldest known individual of Capra nubiana lived 17 years in captivity. It is thought, however, that wild animals have much shorter life spans. Capra ibex , a related species, has been reported to live 10 to 16 years in the wild.

Behavior

Nubian ibex are most active in the twilight period, resting and ruminating occurs in the afternoon or at night. During the winter months, Nubian ibex will seek shelter such as rock outcroppings or caves to avoid the cold, wind, or rain. They often hollow out shallow depressions in the ground in which to rest. Along the shores of the Dead Sea and on the Arabian Peninsula, temperatures may exceed 38 degrees Celsius. During warm periods like these, Nubian ibex will often lie down or occasionally turn on their sides to stay cool. They often spend the hot periods of the day in shaded areas.

• Key Behaviors
• cursorial
• terricolous
• crepuscular crepuscular
• motile motile
• territorial territorial
• social social
• colonial colonial
• dominance hierarchies dominance hierarchies

Home Range

Most groups have ranges of only a few square kilometers, dominated by either females or males which will fight other encroaching members of the same sex. Males are the dispersing sex, and it has been shown that females within a group are highly related to one another. Groups are sexually separated in part due to the need to separate feeding areas for nutritional demands and to find water sources.

Communication and Perception

Goats and ibexes are considered relatively non-vocal, but they have evolved a complex system of visual signals for aggression. Courtship displays are the most intensively studied component of communication in caprines , and are largely similar across all members of this groups. Males will display to other males with their horns, body movements, tongue or lips. They will also display to females. Females often bleat during estrus, and males may make several clicking, nasal sounds, or bleats. The rump patch is shown when animals are indicating submissiveness.

During the rut, males will attempt to gain access to females by sniffing them, licking their anal areas, or nuzzling. If a female urinates, the male will then sniff her carefully, often curling his upper lip, which is a posture known as flehmen that further opens his olfactory senses. Non-receptive females will refrain from urinating, and simply continue grazing or occasionally run away.

Horns are used for fighting, specifically for ramming rather than puncturing. Typically two males will spar, clashing their horns together to establish dominance. Occasionally females will also use their horns for aggression towards upstart young males or other females. Sparring between individuals seldom results in serious damage or bodily injury.

• Communication Channels
• visual visual
• tactile tactile
• acoustic acoustic
• chemical chemical

• Other Communication Modes
• pheromones pheromones
• scent marks scent marks

• Perception Channels
• visual visual
• tactile tactile
• acoustic acoustic
• chemical chemical

Food Habits

Due to heat and water constraints, Nubian ibex usually feed during the night or twilight hours, and occasionally during the day. They descend to lower elevations to feed. The main diet includes herbs, shrubs, tree foliage (especially Acacia ), buds, fruits, and occasionally grass. Nubian ibex especially prefer cadaba ( Cadaba spp.) and camphorweed ( Pluchea spp.). Nubian ibex forage in patches of high quality and where water is in close proximity. They drink water every day if available.

• Primary Diet
• herbivore herbivore
  • folivore folivore

• Plant Foods
• leaves
• wood, bark, or stems
• seeds, grains, and nuts
• flowers

Predation

Probable predators of Nubian ibex include leopards ( Panthera pardus ), wolves ( Canis lupus ), striped hyenas ( Hyaena hyaena ) and humans. Young ibex may also be preyed on by golden eagles ( Aquila chrysaetos ) and eagle owls ( Bubo bubo ). Proximity to cliff edges directly reduces the risk of predation, and Nubian ibex therefore spends much of their time on rock faces. The risk of predation for adult males is low; hence they may live in smaller group sizes.

Ecosystem Roles

Caprinae as a group is catholic in their diet, exhibiting a large range of foraging niches, with a generalized and adaptive diet. They often live in habitats with low primary productivity. Nubian ibex are expanding specialist feeders, meaning individuals forage selectively on plants of higher quality in large patches, and hence increase herbivory on all the plants in the patch.

Grackles ( Quiscalus sp.) have been known to groom Nubian ibex in a reciprocally beneficial act. They eat insects and parasites on skin of the ibexes.

Economic Importance for Humans: Positive

Nubian ibex have been hunted for meat and trophies, and even used as an offering during the Dynastic period in Egypt. Hunting is now illegal in most of the countries in which C. nubiana occurs. However, poaching is still widespread and protected areas are poorly enforced. Nubian ibex have been extirpated in Syria and Lebanon due to over-hunting. Ziswiller 1967 (as cited by Osborn 1998) lists several folk uses from nearly every part of the ibex for humans. Folk uses include the blood for gall stone easement, the heel bone for diseases of the spleen, feces for anemia, the heart for strength, and stomach fluids for many healthful properties.

• Positive Impacts
• body parts are source of valuable material
• ecotourism ecotourism
• source of medicine or drug source of medicine or drug
• research and education

Economic Importance for Humans: Negative

Nubian ibex are likely to compete with domesticated goats ( Capra hircus ) and camels ( Camelus dromedarius ) as well as other herd animals for food and habitat. Foraging ibex in Israel have been recorded damaging orchards and other crops.

Conservation Status

Capra nubiana is listed as an endangered species with an EN C2a classification on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. EN means endangered, and C2a means that the the population estimate is less than 2,500 mature individuals, with no subpopulations greater then 250 mature individuals and an overall declining population trend. Nubian ibex are not listed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) or the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Nubian ibex are protected in Israel, Jordan, and Oman. The population is thought to be at carrying capacity in Israel, but otherwise critically endangered in other areas. Threats to C. nubiana include habitat loss (via agriculture, livestock, and infrastructure development), hunting, pollution, and competition with non-native species. Protecting corridors which connect populations is particularly important for preventing population bottlenecks in this species.

Other Comments

Capra nubiana was first described by F. Cuvier in 1825 as a subspecies of Capra ibex, and synonyms for the species include C. arabica , C. beden , C. mengesi , and C. sinaitica . In 1987 C. nubiana was formally recognized as a distinct species.

In biomes with rich, lush habitats, caprines are typically replaced by cervids and larger bovids . In Africa, gazelles dominate the drier open steppes and grasslands. Thus Caprinae species have adapted to life in difficult environments. In a recent controversial study by Ropiquetet al. (2006), it was proposed that the common ancestor of wild goats arose from interspecific hybridization between ancestral goats (proto- Capra ) and ancestral tahr (proto- Hemitragus ). The product was a goat with a mitochondrial genome better adapted to high altitudes and with more efficient mitochondria, thus allowing them a special advantage to life in the mountains.

Despite their endangered status and elusive nature, Capra nubiana populations have become major tourist attractions in several areas. At the oasis of Engedi, on the Dead Sea, a certain subpopulation has become rather accustomed to humans, and males often predictably venture to a special watering hole popular with tourists.

Additional Links

Encyclopedia of Life

Contributors

Tanya Dewey (editor), Animal Diversity Web.

Jan Tomsen (author), University of Alaska Fairbanks, Link E. Olson (editor, instructor), University of Alaska Fairbanks.

References

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Hochman, V., B. Kotler. 2006. Effects of food quality, diet preference and water on patch use by Nubian ibex. Oikos , 112: 547-554.

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Muller, D., S. Kohlman, P. Alkon. 1995.

A Nubian ibex nursery: crèche or natural trap?

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Osborn, D., J. Osbornová. 1998. The mammals of ancient Egypt. . England: Aris and Phillips Ltd..

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Yosef, R., D. Yosef. 1991. Tristram's grackles groom Nubian ibex. The Wilson Bulletin , 103 (3): 518-520.