Mountain Gazelle
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Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Bovidae
Subfamily: Antilopinae

[Photo] Mountain Gazelle (Gazella gazella). Photo by Bassem18.

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The Mountain Gazelle (Gazella gazella) is a species of gazelles that is widely but unevenly distributed across the Arabian Peninsula. It inhabits mountains, foothills and coastal plains. Its range coincides closely with that of the acacia tree. It is mainly a grazing species, though this varies with food availability. It is less well adapted to hot, dry conditions than the Dorcas Gazelle which appears to have replaced the Mountain Gazella through some of its range during the late Holocene during a period of climatic warming.

The Gazelle in Israel
In Israel there are three subspecies:

The Israeli gazelle - G. g. gazella The Israeli gazella is the most common gazela in Israel and lives mainly in three areas;

- The Galilee where the population in the Galil is one the biggest and there are hundreds of the Israeli gazella in the opens areas,
- The Golan Heights where the population is the biggest in all over Israel and there are an estimated 1500 to 3000. It is estimated that at the turn of the 21st century, there were 5000 to 6000 Israeli gazelle here but successful breeding of the Indian wolves diminished the gazelle numbers,
- Ramot Naftali where there is the second major population in Israel of this subspecies.
- In the coastal plain, there is a small population of the gazella but the numbers are continually decreasing because of the accelerated urbanization.

The Arava gazelle - Gazella gazella acaiae
The Arava gazelle is in critical dangerousness and there are only 62 (counting made in 2007) gazelle in a closed nature reserve near Yotvata.

The merrill gazella - Gazella gazella merrilli
The merrill gazelle live in the mountains near Jerusalem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Gazelle

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