Queen Sheba's Gazelle

Taxobox | name = Queen Sheba's Gazelle
status = EX
status_system = iucn3.1
extinct = 1951
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Mammalia
ordo = Artiodactyla
familia = Bovidae
subfamilia = Antilopinae
genus = "Gazella"
species = "G. bilkis"
binomial = "Gazella bilkis"
binomial_authority = Groves & Lay, 1985

The Queen Sheba's Gazelle ("Gazella bilkis" Groves & Lay, 1985), also called the Yemen Gazelle, is an extinctIUCN2006|assessors=Participants at 4th International Conservation Workshop for the Threatened Fauna of Arabia|year=2003|id=8987|title=Gazella bilkis|downloaded=10 May 2006] species of gazelle. The American Museum of Natural History's Committee on Recently Extinct Organisms recognizes the possibility that it was a subspecies of the Arabian Gazelle, however. It was found on the mountains and hillsides in Yemen but there have been no sightings of the species since 1951, when five specimens were collected in mountains near Ta'izz, where it was reportedly common at the timeIUCN2006|assessors=Participants at 4th International Conservation Workshop for the Threatened Fauna of Arabia|year=2003|id=8987|title=Gazella bilkis|downloaded=10 May 2006] .

There have been no further specimens, sightings or reports of this gazelle. Surveys in the area of their former occurrence have failed to find any sign of its presence.Mallon, D.P. and Al-Safadi, M. 2001.Yemen. In: D.P. Mallon and S.C. Kingswood (compilers). 2001. Antelopes. Part 4: North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Global Survey and Regional Action Plans, pp. 63-68. IUCN, Gland.]

In 1985, a photograph of gazelles was taken in a private collection, Al Wabra Wildlife Farm, in Qatar. Zoologist Colin Groves claims these could possibly be surviving Queen of Sheba's Gazelles [Research in Arabia, 1987 and 1992: visits to King Khalid and National Wildlife Research Centres (Saudi Arabia), Al Wabra Wildlife Farm (Qatar), Al-Areen Wildlife Park and Reserve (Bahrain) and Al Ain Zoo (United Arab Emirates). Downloaded on 29 December 2006 from http://arts.anu.edu.au/grovco/Arabia.htm] . It is not confirmed that these animals truly belong to this species.

References