Antelope

Article summary

among the trees in the African savanna An antelope is any of the extant or recently extinct species of the ruminant artiodactyl family Bovidae, which are indigenous to most of Africa, India, the Middle East, Central Asia, and a small area of Russia. Antelopes do not form a monophyletic group, as some antelopes are more closely related to other bovid groups, such as bovines, goats, and sheep, than to other antelopes. A stricter grouping, known as the true antelopes, includes only the genera Gazella, Nanger, Eudorcas, and Antilope. One North American mammal, the pronghorn or "pronghorn antelope", is colloquially referred to as the "American antelope", despite the fact that it belongs to a different family (Antilocapridae) than the true Old-World antelopes; pronghorn are the sole extant member of a lineage that once included many species which went extinct in the prehistoric period. Although antelopes are sometimes misidentified as "deer" (cervids), the groups are only distantly related. While antelopes are found in abundance in Africa, there is only one living African deer species: the Barbary stag of North Africa. By comparison, numerous deer species are found in regions of the world with few or no antelope species present, such as throughout Southeast Asia, Europe and all of the Americas.…

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