Beatragus antiquus

Beatragus antiquus Temporal range: Late Pliocene - Early Pleistocene
Scientific 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. 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.