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We don’t know what’s weirder — the way the Mongolian saiga looks, or the fact that its population has plummeted by 95 percent in just the last 15 years:
Standing just under two feet at the shoulder and weighing about 50 pounds, the most striking feature of the saiga is its large nose, or proboscis, similar to a tapir [editor’s note: I once called the tapir “the world’s silliest animal,” but this one clearly trumps it]. The function of this unusual nose is not clear, but it may serve to warm or filter air during Mongolia’s frigid winters and notorious dust storms. …
Saigas still occur in pockets of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kalmykia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia, but the genetically unique subspecies found only in Mongolia numbers perhaps less than 2,000. Ten thousand years ago saigas roamed from the northern Yukon and Alaska to England, but the species was lost from North America and Britain as climate and vegetation shifted. With the collapse of the Soviet Empire, unregulated hunting resulted in the recent startling decrease in saiga numbers.
Scientists have just outfitted eight saiga with GPS tracking collars, which will have two effects: (1) helping scientists learn more about what the saiga need to survive, and (2) making the animals look even more ridiculous.
Comments (10)
Comment
OMG! I think I just found my new favorite animal!
posted by Ann S. on 10-19-2006 at 7:58 pm
That thing is freaking ridic.
posted by Amanda on 10-24-2006 at 4:05 pm
It has a head like a camel, which has a sinus structure and blood type that filters out the hot dry air of the desert. Maybe this cute little bugger does the same to COLD dry air.
posted by Dave Gibson on 10-25-2006 at 8:04 am
When I was a kid my older sister got these animal wildlife cards through some nature magazine. When she got the tapir she cried because she thought it was so ugly. I wonder how she would have felt about the saiga.
posted by Jacob on 10-25-2006 at 11:14 am
I am a wombat.
posted by Anthony on 10-25-2006 at 12:39 pm
My siblings and I play a 20 questions-like game, trying to use the most obscure animals possible. It’s getting really tricky, because my sister is now a zoologist! I’ll have to try this one on her, see if she knows what it is!
posted by Maggie on 10-25-2006 at 1:13 pm
I wonder what kind of noise it makes? I imagine it going *GRONK* really loudly, but that’s just me.
posted by Bailey on 10-25-2006 at 4:40 pm
I just want to know what that guy behind him in the picture did to make him levitate like that! GRONK!
posted by Jylsamynne on 10-25-2006 at 10:33 pm
He probably used that gps tracking collar which doubles as a shock collar!
what a poor Mongolian saiga.
posted by jordan on 10-28-2006 at 6:12 pm
i like tapirs. i like the saiga, too. it’s cute, with that big head.
posted by rowan on 11-19-2006 at 10:01 pm