''Beatragus antiquus'', the ancient hirola, is an extinct species of alcelaphine antelope that lived in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

during the

Plio-Pleistocene The Plio-Pleistocene is an informally described geological pseudo-period, which begins about 5 million years ago (Mya) and, drawing forward, combines the time ranges of the formally defined Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs—marking from about 5&n ...

Discovery

''Beatragus antiquus'' was first described by

Louis Leakey Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey (7 August 1903 – 1 October 1972) was a Kenyan-British palaeoanthropologist and archaeologist whose work was important in demonstrating that humans evolved in Africa, particularly through discoveries made at Olduvai ...

in 1965 from material discovered at the

Olduvai Gorge The Olduvai Gorge or Oldupai Gorge in Tanzania is one of the most important paleoanthropology, paleoanthropological localities in the world; the many sites exposed by the gorge have proven invaluable in furthering understanding of early human evo ...

(Beds I and II) in

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

. Other remains dated slightly earlier have also been found in the Omo valley and possibly at Elandsfontein in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

Description

The ancient hirola was larger than the modern day

hirola The hirola (''Beatragus hunteri''), also called the Hunter's hartebeest or Hunter's antelope, is a critically endangered antelope species found as of now, only in Kenya along the border of Somalia. It was first described by the big game hunter an ...

, and the two together may represent a

chronospecies A chronospecies is a species derived from a sequential development pattern that involves continual and uniform changes from an extinct ancestral form on an evolutionary scale. The sequence of alterations eventually produces a population that is p ...

. 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.

Paleoecology

It lived in vast savannas alongside other alcelaphine antelopes, such as a small species of ''

Damaliscus The genus ''Damaliscus'', commonly known as damalisks, is a genus of antelope in the family Bovidae, subfamily Alcelaphinae The subfamily Alcelaphinae (or Tribe (biology), tribe Alcelaphini), of the family Bovidae, contains the wildebeest, ts ...

'' and '' Parmularius''. 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.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q21350684 Prehistoric Artiodactyla Pleistocene Artiodactyla Prehistoric bovids Pleistocene mammals of Africa