Beatragus antiquus
Temporal range: Late Pliocene - Early Pleistocene
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Bovidae
Subfamily: Alcelaphinae
Genus: Beatragus
Species:
†B. antiquus
Binomial name
†Beatragus antiquus
Leakey, 1965

Beatragus antiquus, the ancient hirola, is an extinct species of alcelaphine antelope that lived in Africa during the Plio-Pleistocene.

Discovery

Beatragus antiquus was first described by Louis Leakey in 1965 from material discovered at the Olduvai Gorge (Beds I and II) in Tanzania.[1] Other remains dated slightly earlier have also been found in the Omo valley and possibly at Elandsfontein in South Africa.[2]

Description

The ancient hirola was larger than the modern day hirola, and the two together may represent a chronospecies.[2] Other differences with the hirola include horn cores diverging immediately from their bases, a lessening of distal divergence, more upright insertions in side view and wider and more convex frontals of the horn cores.[3]

Paleoecology

It lived in vast savannas alongside other alcelaphine antelopes, such as a small species of Damaliscus and Parmularius.[2] The ancient hirola probably declined as a result of diminished habitat preferences, and the modern species, with its smaller size and less energy demands, eventually evolved to cope with the new ecologically impoverished landscape.[4]

References

  1. ↑ Leakey, L.S.B. (1965). Olduvai Gorge: Volume 1. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052105527X.
  2. 1 2 3 Kingdon, Jonathan (1984). East African Mammals: An Atlas of Evolution in Africa, Volume 3, Part D: Bovids. University of Chicago Press. p. 477. ISBN 9780226437255.
  3. ↑ Werdelin, Lars; Sanders, William Joseph (2010). Cenozoic Mammals of Africa. University of California Press. p. 782. ISBN 9780520257214.
  4. ↑ Kingdon, Jonathan (2014). Mammals of Africa: Volume VI Hippopotamuses, Pigs, Deer, Giraffe and Bovids. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 490. ISBN 9781408189955.
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