Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Artiodactyla > Bovidae > Dorcatragus > Dorcatragus megalotis

Dorcatragus megalotis (beira)

Synonyms: Oreotragus megalotis

Wikipedia Abstract

The beira (Dorcatragus megalotis) is a small antelope that inhabits arid regions of Somalia, Djibouti, and eastern Ethiopia. The beira stands 1.5 to 2.0 ft (0.46 to 0.61 m) high at the shoulder and weighs between 20 and 25 lb (9.1 and 11.3 kg). It has a coarse, red-grey coat with a yellow-red face. It has long, 6 in (15 cm) ears and the males of the species have short, straight horns. The captive-breeding program at the Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation in Qatar has a current population of about 35 beira. The term 'beira' is derived from behra, its Somali name.
View Wikipedia Record: Dorcatragus megalotis

Endangered Species

Status: Vulnerable
View IUCN Record: Dorcatragus megalotis

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
4
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
46
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 9.4
EDGE Score: 3.73
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  22.597 lbs (10.25 kg)
Diet [2]  Herbivore
Diet - Plants [2]  100 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Gestation [3]  6 months
Litter Size [4]  1
Maximum Longevity [4]  14 years
Snout to Vent Length [4]  32 inches (82 cm)

Ecoregions

Name Countries Ecozone Biome Species Report Climate Land
Use
Ethiopian xeric grasslands and shrublands Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia Afrotropic Deserts and Xeric Shrublands
Somali Acacia-Commiphora bushlands and thickets Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan Afrotropic Tropical and Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands
Somali montane xeric woodlands Somalia Afrotropic Deserts and Xeric Shrublands

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Horn of Africa Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Oman, Somalia, Yemen Yes

Prey / Diet

Acalypha fruticosa[3]
Aerva javanica (Java aerva)[3]
Croton somalensis[3]
Vachellia etbaica[3]
Vachellia oerfota[3]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Competing SpeciesCommon Prey Count
Estrilda rufibarba (Arabian Waxbill)1

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Felisa A. Smith, S. Kathleen Lyons, S. K. Morgan Ernest, Kate E. Jones, Dawn M. Kaufman, Tamar Dayan, Pablo A. Marquet, James H. Brown, and John P. Haskell. 2003. Body mass of late Quaternary mammals. Ecology 84:3403
♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 3Observations on the behaviour and ecology of a threatened and poorly known dwarf antelope: the beira (Dorcatragus megalotis), Nina Giotto & Alain Laurent & Nabil Mohamed & Nicolas Prevot & Jean-François Gerard, Eur J Wildl Res (2008) 54:539–547
♦ 4Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0