page_title: Antelope
section_title: Distribution and habitat
hierarchical_section_title: Antelope / Distribution and habitat
caption_attribution_description: English: Blue Duiker skeleton on display at the Museum of Osteology.
context_page_description: The term antelope is used to refer to many species of even-toed ruminant indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia.
  Antelopes comprise a wastebasket taxon within the family Bovidae, encompassing all Old World ruminants that are not bovines, sheep, or goats. Antelopes are considered the sister group to deer within the infraorder Pecora. A group of antelope is called a herd.
  Unlike deer antlers, which are shed and grown annually, antelope horns grow continuously.
context_section_description: More species of antelope are native to Africa than to any other continent, almost exclusively in savannahs, with 20-35 species co-occurring over much of East Africa. Because savannah habitat in Africa has expanded and contracted five times over the last three million years, and the fossil record indicates this is when most extant species evolved, it is believed that isolation in refugia during contractions was a major driver of this diversification. Other species occur in Asia: the Arabian Peninsula is home to the Arabian oryx and Dorcas gazelle. India is home to the nilgai, chinkara, blackbuck, Tibetan antelope, and four-horned antelope, while Russia and Central Asia have the Tibetan antelope, and saiga.
  No antelope species is native to Australasia or Antarctica, nor do any extant species occur in the Americas, though the nominate saiga subspecies occurred in North America during the Pleistocene. North America is currently home to the native pronghorn, which taxonomists do not consider a member of the antelope group, but which is often locally referred to as such (e.g., "American antelope"). In Europe, several extinct species occur in the fossil record, and the saiga was found widely during the Pleistocene but did not persist into the later Holocene, except in Russian Kalmykia  and Astrakhan Oblast.
  Many species of antelopes have been imported to other parts of the world, especially the United States, for exotic game hunting. With some species possessing spectacular leaping and evasive skills, individuals may escape. Texas in particular has many game ranches, as well as habitats and climates, that are very hospitable to African and Asian plains antelope species. Accordingly, wild populations of blackbuck antelope, gemsbok, and nilgai may be found in Texas.
  Antelope live in a wide range of habitats. Numerically, most live in the African savannahs. However, many species are more secluded, such as the forest antelope, as well as the extreme cold-living saiga, the desert-adapted Arabian oryx, the rocky koppie-living klipspringer, and semiaquatic sitatunga.
  Species living in forests, woodland, or bush tend to be sedentary, but many of the plains species undertake long migrations. These enable grass-eating species to follow the rains and thereby their food supply. The gnus and gazelles of East Africa perform some of the most impressive mass migratory circuits of all mammals.
caption: Blue duiker (Philantomba monticola) skeleton on display at the Museum of Osteology.
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