Scientific Name: Gazella Dama or Nanger Dama
Height: 42 inches (108 cm)Average Adult Weight: Up to 190 pounds (85 kg)
Life Span: 12 years in the wild, late teens in captivity.
Description: Their coats are mostly white, with brown patches over the neck and back.
Females have more white in their coats than males. Their horns can be 14 inches long. Females have shorter horns. Their horn tend to curl a little at the end.
Habitat: Sahara Desert. The dama gazelle likes stony plains and plateaus, inter-dunal depressions with shallow sandy soils, and undulating foothills and steppes.
Dama Gazelles travel in herds from 6 to 30 gazelles.
Countries found in: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Morocco, Sudan, Niger, and Senegal.
Babies: Gestation is 5.5 to 6 months. One calf is born at a time. Within a couple of days the calf is strong enough to follow its mother.Food: The dama gazelle browses on various desert shrubs and acacias standing on its hind legs to reach higher leaves. During drought, it eats rough desert grasses. The dama gazelle is drought proof and gets most of its water from the food it eats.
Group Name: Herd of dama gazelle.
Habits: Dama gazelles move into the Sahara Desert in the wet season and out of the Sahara Desert to moister parts of their range for the dry season.
Endangered: Critically Endangered. There are approximately 200 dama gazelles in captivity which are being managed under the North American Species Survival Plan
Interesting Facts: The dama gazelle is the largest gazelle.
The Dama Gazelle's greatest threat is man (poachers) who are responsible for their sharp decline in population. Other animals that prey upon the Dama Gazelle are the cheetah, cape hunting dog, lion, leopard, hyena, and python.
