Animal Spotlight: Saiga Antelope

The saiga antelope (Saiga Tatarica) is a critically endangered antelope from Eurasia. Severe winters followed by summer droughts in recent years have made it difficult for its population to recover. Saiga is the Russian name for this antelope.

Description
The coat is composed of a wooly underlayer and a course set of bristly hairs which protect the saiga from the elements. Horned males are larger than horned females. A notable trait of the saiga antelope is its unusual nose structure, called the proboscis. Its nose helps filter out dust during migrations and cools the animal's blood. In winter, the nose heats up the air before it reaches the lungs.

Habitat
Saigas form herds that graze in semideserts, steppes, grasslands, and possibly open woodlands. During the last gracial period, the saiga ranged from the British Isles through Central Asia and the Bering Strait into Alaska and Canada's  Yukon and Northwest Territories. At the beginning of the 18th Century, it lived from the shores of the Black Sea, the foothills of Carpathian Mountains, and the northern edge of the Caucasus into Dzungaria and Mongolia.

Behaviour
The saiga is mostly active during the day. It is a nomadic species, which means it does not have fixed home ranges, so they walk several dozen kilometers in a given day. They can swim across rivers but they avoid steep or rugged areas.

Saiga antelopes form herds of 30-40 animals. However, during the migration season tens of thousands of saiga will travel together.

Threats
The horn of the saiga is used in traditional Chinese medicine. Demand for the horn has wiped out the population in China. Climate change and stormy spring weather may have caused the epizootic illness on May 2015. The disease might also have occurred  as a result of foraging on a large amounts of easily fermenting plants.

Sources:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saiga_antelope
2. http://www.ultimateungulate.com/artiodactyla/saiga_tatarica.html
3. http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/endangered_species/saiga_antelope/
4. http://cheezburger.com/7346079232
5. http://www.animalspot.net/saiga-antelope.html