Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Until the 1950's, Pro­capra gut­tur­osa was found through­out most of Mon­go­lia and the ad­ja­cent re­gions of Kaza­khstan, the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion and China. This is an area of about 1.2 mil­lion square kilo­me­ters. Now the species is found only in the east­ern por­tion of this range, in an area of less than 400,000 square kilo­me­ters. (Leim­gru­ber, et al., 2001)

• Biogeographic Regions
• palearctic
  • native
• oriental
  • native

Habi­tat

Pro­capra gut­tur­osa live in a semi arid, cold, tem­per­ate zone. Mon­go­lian gazelles pre­fer flat or un­du­lat­ing steppes and dry grass­lands. (Jiang, et al., 2002)

The re­gion where this species oc­curs fea­tures cold win­ters (with tem­per­a­tures of -30 de­grees Cel­cius). The grow­ing sea­son is short and it is dry through­out most of the year. Con­tin­u­ous snow cover lasts from 120 to 180 days of the year. Spring can be very windy and sum­mers are rel­a­tively wet and hot (with tem­per­aturs of up to 40 de­grees Cel­cius). (Read­ing, et al., 1998)

The frost­less sum­mer pe­riod is 80 to 120 days. The an­nual rain­fall is 250 to 380 mm. The gazelles live in cool tem­per­ate tall grass­lands. The grow­ing sea­son in these areas is from early May to the end of Sep­tem­ber. The dor­mant sea­son is from Oc­to­ber until April. Snow­storms and heavy snow ac­cu­mu­la­tion are com­mon. The main nat­ural calami­ties that the gazelles face are snow, snow­storms and frost­bite. (Jiang, et al., 2002)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate

• Terrestrial Biomes
• savanna or grassland

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Adult Mon­go­lian gazelles mea­sure from 1 to 1.3 m from head to rump and stand about 75 cm tall at the shoul­der. Males weigh around 30 kg and fe­males about 25 kg. Fawns weigh 2.8 to 3.0 kg when they are born and mea­sure 51 to 56 cm from head to rump. The sum­mer coat is or­ange-buff, the flanks are pink­ish-cin­na­mon, and the belly is white with a long haired dewlap. The win­ter coat is paler. Dur­ing the rut, the males have swollen throats. Only males have horns, and these range in length from 225 to 355 mm. (Gao, et al., 1998)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• male larger
• ornamentation

• Range mass

  25 to 30 kg

  55.07 to 66.08 lb

• Range length

  1.3 to 1 m

  4.27 to 3.28 ft

Re­pro­duc­tion

Mon­go­lian gazelles are polyg­y­nous with one male gath­er­ing about 13 fe­males. Rut­ting oc­curs in mid-No­vem­ber to early Feb­ru­ary. Dur­ing the rut, males bat­tle with each other though the fight­ing is not se­ri­ous. (Leim­gru­ber, et al., 2001)

• Mating System
• polygynous

Mat­ing oc­curs dur­ing the rut, from mid-No­vem­ber through Feb­ru­ary. The birthing sea­son fol­lows in mid-June to mid-July, in­di­cat­ing a ges­ta­tion pe­riod of about 7 months. Fawns are born singly, with twins oc­cur­ing rarely (2.5 to 8.2%). The preg­nancy rate of fe­males older than 1.5 years is be­tween 90% and 100%. The birthing sea­son is quite vari­able and de­pends on the cli­matic con­di­tions dur­ing the pre­vi­ous year. (Leim­gru­ber, et al., 2001)

Dur­ing the two weeks of calv­ing, fe­males herd up to a den­sity of 40,000 fe­males per 35 square kilo­me­ters. Ninety per­cent of the fe­males in a herd will give birth within a 4 day pe­riod. This birth syn­chrony is a strat­egy the species has de­vel­oped to com­bat the short grow­ing sea­son and the ef­fec­tive­ness of preda­tors. Fe­males must have their young at about the same time to allow the young to reach a min­i­mum body size by the onset of win­ter. Birth syn­chrony is also a strat­egy called preda­tor swamp­ing. If all the fe­males have their young at one time, there will be so many that some will be able to avoid pre­da­tion. (Leim­gru­ber, et al., 2001)

Fe­males reach sex­ual ma­tu­rity at 1.5 years old, whereas males ma­ture sex­u­ally at about 2.5 years old. (Leim­gru­ber, et al., 2001)

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

• Breeding interval

  These animals breed once yearly.

• Breeding season

  Rutting occurs from mid-November to early February. Birthing occurs in mid-June to mid July.

• Range number of offspring

  1 to 2

• Average number of offspring

  1

• Average number of offspring

  1.3

  AnAge

• Average gestation period

  7 months

• Average gestation period

  185 days

  AnAge

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  1.5 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)
  Sex: female

  532 days

  AnAge

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  2.5 years

As in many mam­malian species, parental care seems to be pri­mar­ily a fe­male af­fair. Fe­males pro­vide milk, groom­ing, and pro­tec­tion to their fawns. Fawns stay with their moth­ers in the herd for about one year and stay with the herd until they have reached sex­ual ma­tu­rity. (Gao, et al., 1998)

• Parental Investment
• no parental involvement
• altricial
• pre-fertilization
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-independence
  • protecting
    • female
• post-independence association with parents

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Male Mon­go­lian gazelles live about 7.5 years and fe­males live 9.5 years, which is con­sid­er­ably less than other re­lated un­gu­lates. The short­ened longevity of this species is partly be­cause of quick tooth wear­ing. (Gao, et al., 1998)

The sur­vival rate of fawns in their first sum­mer is 80%. Be­cause of the high rate of preg­nancy and of fawn sur­vival, the rate of in­crease of the pop­u­la­tions some­times reaches 20 to 25%. (Gao, et al., 1998)

Pre­da­tion, pe­ri­odic epi­demics, and se­vere win­ters are the main causes of death for mem­bers of this species. Mon­go­lian gazelles suf­fer from "foot and mouth dis­ease" and Pas­teurel­losis, as well as un­known dis­eases. Heavy snows and food short­ages in the win­ter some­times cause losses of one third to half of a Mon­go­lian gazelle pop­u­la­tion. (Gao, et al., 1998)

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  0 years

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  7.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Be­hav­ior

Mon­go­lian gazelles seem to be the Asian eco­log­i­cal equiv­a­lent of the prong­horn an­te­lope in North Amer­ica. They are both well adapted to dry grass­land ecosys­tems. They can run very fast. Mon­go­lian gazelles are able to reach speeds of 60 to 65 km/hr. They can also jump as high as 2 m and as far as 4 to 6 m. They have keen eye­sight but rel­a­tively poor senses of smell and hear­ing. (Gao, et al., 1998)

Mon­go­lian gazelles live in groups all year round, group size is larger dur­ing the win­ter than in the sum­mer. In sum­mer, groups usu­ally num­ber about 20 to 30 in­di­vid­u­als. Win­ter groups in­crease to sev­eral hun­dred. Mon­go­lian gazelles are al­ways on the move, mostly due to food short­ages. Only fe­males stop briefly dur­ing calv­ing sea­son. They usu­ally travel in herds of 35,000 to 80,000 in­di­vid­u­als. Dur­ing their mi­gra­tion they fol­low green pas­tures, es­pe­cially dur­ing cru­cial parts of their life cycle such as birthing and win­ter­ing. Dur­ing these times, they con­gre­gate in areas of high rel­a­tive plant pro­duc­tiv­ity. (Leim­gru­ber, et al., 2001)

• Key Behaviors
• terricolous
• diurnal
• motile
• nomadic
• migratory
• social

Home Range

These an­i­mals don't re­ally have a home range, as they con­tin­u­ously move through­out their range in search of food.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

No in­for­ma­tion is avail­able on the com­mu­ni­ca­tion of Mon­go­lian gazelles. How­ever, gen­er­al­iza­tions can be made, be­cause they are di­ur­nal mam­mals. They are likely to com­mu­ni­cate with vi­sual sig­nals and body pos­tures. Vo­cal­iza­tions are prob­a­bly pre­sent. Scent cues may be im­por­tant in mat­ing and be­tween mother an off­spring. Un­doubt­edly, tac­tile com­mu­ni­ca­tion is also im­por­tant in such in­ter­ac­tions.

• Communication Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

Mon­go­lian gazelles are small ru­mi­nants, but they are clas­si­fied as in­ter­me­di­ate feed­ers. In­ter­me­di­ate feed­ers are ru­mi­nants that are mor­pho­phys­i­o­log­i­cally in­ter­me­di­ate be­tween graz­ers and browsers. This clas­si­fi­ca­tion is ar­rived at based on the ratio of the weight of ru­mi­noretic­u­lar con­tents to body weight and the length of the total in­tes­tine rel­a­tive to body length, as well as the ratio of the length of the small to the large in­tes­tine. (Takat­suki, et al., 2002)

Mon­go­lian gazelles have ap­par­ently adopted a di­ges­tive strat­egy sim­i­lar to that of browsers, pos­si­bly be­cause of their small body size. This al­lows them to adapt more eas­ily to the en­vi­ron­men­tal fac­tors. They can reg­u­late their di­ges­tive sys­tem in re­sponse to sea­sonal changes in food qual­ity. (Jiang, et al., 2002)

Dur­ing au­tumn and win­ter they have the abil­ity to di­gest fi­brous foods more ef­fi­ciently than other sea­sons. Dur­ing the dor­mancy months, their di­ges­tive sys­tem holds more, and holds it for a longer time, al­low­ing them to di­gest food more com­pletely. This helps the gazelles to com­pen­sate for poor food qual­ity and low food avail­abil­ity. (Jiang, et al., 2002)

Dur­ing dor­mancy, the grasses they feed upon are lower in lev­els of pro­tein than un­gu­lates typ­i­cally re­quire. But dur­ing this time of year, the gazelles must still sub­sist on grasses and other lower qual­ity foods. They pre­fer higher qual­ity foods when they are avail­able. In spring they eat Artemisia spp., peashrubs, onions and legumes. Dur­ing the sum­mer onions com­prise 80% of the diet. Lightly grazed areas have more nu­tri­tional forbs than do mod­er­ately or heav­ily grazed areas, how­ever, lightly grazed areas are usu­ally around towns and vil­lages and not read­ily uti­lized.

Mon­go­lian gazelles also have abun­dant mi­croor­gan­isms that help them to re­cy­cle ni­tro­gen for pro­tein syn­the­sis, and to sup­ple­ment the ni­tro­gen short­age of food dur­ing au­tumn and win­ter. (Jiang, et al., 2002)

• Primary Diet
• herbivore
  • folivore

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

Pre­da­tion

The main preda­tors of Mon­go­lian gazelles are wolves (Canis lupus), do­mes­tic dogs (Canis fa­mil­iaris), and steppe ea­gles. Manul (Felis manul), red fox (Vulpe vulpes), kites, and vul­tures also prey on new­born fawns. Wolves at­tack the gazelles dur­ing late win­ter and spring, par­tic­u­larly after rut when males are ex­hausted and un­able to run for long pe­ri­ods. In early sum­mer, wolves at­tack preg­nant fe­males. (Gao, et al., 1998)

The main de­fenses these an­i­mals have against pre­da­tion seem to be re­lated to preda­tor swamp­ing. Fe­males give birth to their young in syn­chrony each spring, ap­par­ently al­low­ing more of the young to sur­vive. Also, Mon­go­lian gazelles herd to­gether in es­pe­cially large groups at the time of calv­ing. (Gao, et al., 1998; Leim­gru­ber, et al., 2001)

• Known Predators

  • gray wolves (Canis lupus)
  • domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris)
  • steppe eagles (Aquila nipalensis)
  • Pallas's cats (Felis manul)
  • red foxes (Vulpes vulpes)
  • kites (Accipitridae)
  • vultures (Accipitridae)

Ecosys­tem Roles

No in­for­ma­tion is avail­able on the ecosys­tem roles pro­vided by Mon­go­lian gazelles. They pro­vide food for a va­ri­ety of an­i­mals and given the large num­bers in which they travel, are likely to have an im­pact on plant com­mu­ni­ties where they graze.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Mon­go­lian gazelles are an im­por­tant souce of food for many­lo­cal peo­ples, and are heav­ily hunted, both legally and il­le­gally. (Gao, et al., 1998)

• Positive Impacts
• food
• body parts are source of valuable material

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

There are no known ad­verse af­fects of Mon­go­lian gazelles on hu­mans. How­ever, they carry foot and mouth dis­ease, which could po­ten­tially be trans­mit­ted to do­mes­tic an­i­mals. (Gao, et al., 1998)

• Negative Impacts
• causes or carries domestic animal disease

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Mon­go­lian gazelles used to be the most nu­mer­ous wild un­gu­late of the grass­land re­gion of China. They were a sig­nif­i­cant com­po­nent of the grass­land ecosys­tem. The pop­u­la­tion has de­creased dra­mat­i­cally and now faces ex­tir­pa­tion in China. In the 1940s, the pop­u­la­tion was about 1,500,000. Today it is just 300,000 to 500,000. This is a re­sult of grass­land degra­da­tion (total grass pro­duc­tion has dropped by 30%) due to human ex­pan­sion, agri­cul­tural de­vel­op­ment, and over­graz­ing since the 1960s. (Gao, et al., 1998)

The de­cline in Mon­go­lian gazelle pop­u­la­tions can also be at­trib­uted to over-hunt­ing and de­ser­ti­fi­ca­tion. Poach­ing is a prob­lem for this species, with poach­ers shoot­ing more rut­ting males and more preg­nant and lac­tat­ing fe­males after the legal hunt­ing pe­riod, be­cause they are eas­ier to shoot. The re­duc­tion of preg­nant fe­males re­sults in de­creased fe­cun­dity and the re­duc­tion of re­pro­duc­tive males re­sults in un­healthy sex ra­tios. (Gao, et al., 1998)

In 1989, the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment listed Mon­go­lian gazelles under its wildlife pro­tec­tion law as a Class II species for con­ser­va­tion. Under this law, na­ture re­serves are sup­posed to be es­tab­lished, and in­spec­tion of habi­tat con­di­tion is to be made reg­u­larly. Con­struc­tion pro­jects which de­grade the habi­tat, and trad­ing of the gazelles and their parts, are to be con­trolled. Hunt­ing is pro­hib­ited, and poach­ing can be pros­e­cuted under crim­i­nal law. (Gao, et al., 1998)

In Mon­go­lia, hunt­ing has been con­trolled since 1932 and in 1995 a new hunt­ing law was in­tro­duced to help re­duce poach­ing. (Gao, et al., 1998)

In the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion's "Red Data Book", the Mon­go­lian gazelle is listed as a 'dis­ap­pear­ing species.' (Gao, et al., 1998)

Be­cause the species mi­grates be­tween China and Mon­go­lia, any con­ser­va­tion pro­gram re­quires co­op­er­a­tion and co­or­di­na­tion be­tween these coun­tries. It is rec­om­mended that the open sea­son for hunt­ing Mon­go­lian gazelles be lim­ited to the time of great­est meat qual­ity, and hunt­ing in­ten­sity be lim­ited to 19% of the total pop­u­la­tion. Be­cause of the high re­pro­duc­tive ca­pac­ity of the species, pop­u­la­tions would be able to re­cover quite quickly de­spite con­tin­ued hunt­ing, pro­vid­ing that poach­ing is con­trolled. (Gao, et al., 1998)

The In­ter­na­tional Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Na­ture and Nat­ural Re­sources lists the Mon­go­lian gazelle as a lower risk species that is near threat­ened. They list the species major threats as human in­duced habi­tat loss and degra­da­tion and har­vest­ing. ("IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species", 2002)

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Nancy Shef­ferly (ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web.

Jill Wick (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin-Stevens Point, Chris Yahnke (ed­i­tor, in­struc­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin-Stevens Point.

Ref­er­ences

IUCN. 2002. "IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species" (On-line ). Ac­cessed 12/04/02 at http://​www.​redlist.​org/​.

Gao, Z., Z. Jiang, S. Takat­suki, J. Kuh. 1998. The pre­sent sta­tus, ecol­ogy and con­ser­va­tion of the Mon­go­lian gazelle, Pro­capra gut­tur­osa: a re­view. Mam­mal Study, 23(1): 63-78.

Jiang, Z., S. Takat­suki, J. Li, W. Wang, J. Ma. 2002. Sea­sonal vari­a­tions in food and di­ges­tion of Mon­go­lian gazelles in China. Jour­nal of Wildlife Man­age­ment, 66(1): 40-47.

Leim­gru­ber, P., W. Mc­Shea, C. Brookes, B. Lham­suren, C. Wem­mer. 2001. Spa­tial pat­terns in rel­a­tive pri­mary pro­duc­tiv­ity and gazelle mi­gra­tion in the East­ern Steppes of Mon­go­lia. Bi­o­log­i­cal Con­ser­va­tion, 102(2): 205-212.

Read­ing, R., S. Am­galan­baatar, L. Lhag­va­suren. 1998. Bi­o­log­i­cal as­s­es­ment of Three Beau­ties of the Gobi Na­tional Con­ser­va­tion Park, Mon­go­lia. Bio­di­ver­sity and Con­ser­va­tion, 8(8): 1115-1137.

Takat­suki, S., Z. Jiang, J. Li, W. Wang, J. Ma. 2002. Feed­ing type and sea­sonal di­ges­tive strat­egy of Mon­go­lian gazelles in China. Jour­nal of Mam­mol­ogy, 83(1): 91-98.