Saigas are Straight Out of Star Wars

this episode was brought to you by curiosity stream the Saiga is an antelope that looks like it's straight out of Star Wars unfortunately the problems they're facing are far from being science-fiction hi I'm Danielle and you're watching Animal Logic the Saiga is a critically endangered antelope that lives in Central Asia they are the only extant members of their genus and there are two subspecies the Russian Saiga or Saiga - terracotta terracotta is found in Russia Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in the winter while the Mongolian Saiga or Saiga Tutera kamongo Luca is only found in well you guessed it Western Mongolia their closest living relative is the Springbok which is really interesting because Springboks only live in southern Africa which is very far from Saiga Territory psychos are between 60 and 80 centimetres tall at the shoulder are around 100 to 140 centimeters long and weigh up to 65 kilos life in the steppes gets very cold in the winter and like most other cold climate dwellers Saiga's grow their coats out to adapt their coats also change color from a sandy brown to a snow ash gray in the winter this helps with camouflage Saiga's are social animals they typically form herds of between 30 and 40 members but when migrating they will form massive herds 10,000 strong it's an astonishing sight to be seen one of the first things you'll notice about Saiga's are their amazing horns only the males have horns and they can measure up to 38 centimetres long and they can have over 20 rings the older the male the more rings he has Mongolian Saiga's have smaller horns measuring only about 20 centimetres long they use these horns for fighting over females but the feature that really makes them look like aliens of Star Wars is their nose their giant gelatinous looking nose their nostrils are bloated significantly enlarged and pointed downwards living in large herds in a habitat of semi-desert and playing there tends to be a lot of dust in the air and their nose helps them filter it out also there in large nasal passage can warm up air entering their nose in the harsh winters of the steppes and cool the air entering their nose during hot summers during rutting season when males are fighting over females the male's nose gets even bigger to attract a female they will shake their heads making an extremely satisfying squishy sound as their gelatinous nose shakes to and fro this is their mating ritual females tend to choose a male with a squishiest sloppiest and blue various nose I mean who wouldn't unfortunately the fun for the Saiga stops with the nose shake a story of Saiga populations is a saga of peaks and valleys historically Saiga is occupied a much broader territory than they currently do prior to the Holocene they were found all the way from modern-day England across Europe Asia Beringia Alaska and possibly even here in Canada but over the years went extinct in this range more recently there were nearly hunted to extinction in the 1920s taking their population from the millions to the hundreds fortunately they were able to recover due to strict protections put in place by the USSR and miraculously were able to thrive despite a strict population bottleneck by the 1950s there were 2 million psychos in the USSR alone but all good things come to an end and due to their booming population and the dwindling population of another horned species the Rhino some environmentalists in an attempt to curb rhino poaching encouraged hunters to hunt Saiga instead this combined with the fall of the USSR and subsequent loss of Saiga protection led to a free-for-all for the beautiful Saiga horn shrinking their populations since the males are the ones at the horns the poachers almost exclusively target them creating a sex imbalance resulting in reproductive failures poachers hunts I goes for two main reasons there which is apparently quite tasty and their horns which are unfortunately still used in traditional Chinese medicine Saiga's have massive territory and migrate vast distances in search of better weather and food namely grass cypress sell warts bogs and lichen yet it has become increasingly difficult for Saiga's to travel those vast distances as barbed-wire border fences prohibit them from completing their migrations as a result many Saiga's starve to death humans really are the reason that we can't have nice things but poachers and boarders aren't the extent of our negative impact on the Saiga population global warming has allowed for new pathogens to enter their environment since Saiga's have gone through two extreme population bottlenecks relatively recently they aren't well equipped to fight these new diseases their genetic pool is very small and if there's a disease that will kill one Saiga it's likely to kill thousands in 1988 a disease killed over 400,000 Saiga's over two-thirds of their population since their populations somewhat rebounded when in 2015 it happened again 200,000 Saiga died reducing their population by over half in just three weeks the most likely cause is a bacterial infection called pasteurellosis a bacteria which is actually found in their noses and is normally harmless unless it enters their bloodstream where it becomes lethal the leading theory on why this happened is that there were unusually high temperatures and humidity in the days leading up to their deaths and the same was true for two previous cases of mass death in the region this suggests that the rising temperatures across the globe are driving factor in these types of deadly bacterial infections the most frightening thing about these mass death events is that they have a 100% mortality rate no Saiga's recovered when the dust settled there were only healthy Saiga's and dead Saiga's fortunately for Saiga's their survival strategy is based on high reproductive rates with females consistently giving birth to triplets every year population booms and crashes might be part of the course but we're creating a world where the Saiga population Peaks are low and the valleys are catastrophic Saiga's have survived for thousands of years but soon may be facing the harsh realities of climate change not unlike many other prehistoric species like the woolly mammoth and the SaberCats if you'd like to dive into the world of megafauna like SaberCats I highly recommend that you go watch age of big cats a curiosity stream original series that is streaming right now the series examines the life of prehistoric predators and prey and how modern big cats evolved alongside these predators and eventually came to world domination the series is beautifully shot in 4k and expertly narrated telling the gripping tale of the clash of the coolest predators on the planet curiosity stream is a subscription streaming service that has a huge library of more than 2,000 documentaries nonfiction titles and exclusive originals if you want to watch something smart there's always something there to check out age of big cats and support animal logic go to curiosity stream comm slash animal logic and claim your 30 day free trial with the promo code animal logic what animal should I check out next please let me know in the comments and be sure to subscribe for new episodes of animal logic every other week thanks for watching this episode wouldn't have been possible without the support from the saiga conservation alliance there our network of researchers and conservationists who are working in several countries in the Saiga's range to save this beautiful animal if you'd like to learn more and help the cause please follow the link in the description [Music]

Channel: Animalogic

Views: 2,550,543

Keywords: animals, animal, logic, education, show, animalogic, crazy, ugly, weird, gross, beautiful, interesting, facts, animalsfacts, about, information, info, school, research, learn, learning, fun, easy, smart, saiga, antelope, death, mass, nose, star, wars, floppy, horns, rings, wacky, noses, big, squishy, binturong, okapi

Id: mUjjkAI56qM

Length: 8min 31sec (511 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 09 2018