THE DAMA GAZELLE 
GAZELLA DAMA 
T HE dama gazelle of Senegal, the mhorr ( g . d. mhorr) of 
Morocco, and the addra or red-necked gazelle ( g . d. ruficollis) 
of the deserts of Dongola and Kordofan, which were formerly 
considered to be distinct species, are now usually regarded as 
local races of one species. They are the tallest of all the gazelles, 
the males standing as much as three feet at the shoulder; but, 
owing to the length of their legs and their comparatively slender bodies, 
they probably do not weigh as much as average specimens of either Grant’s 
or Sommering’s gazelles. 
Although the existence of the typical dama gazelle has been known to 
naturalists ever since the time of Buff on, its habitat does not seem even 
yet to have been accurately ascertained; but its range is known to extend 
from Senegal to Lake Tchad, gradually merging to the east into the addra, 
whose range extends through the Southern Sahara to Kordofan and the 
Nile. In this desert form of the dama the white rump patch extends over 
almost the whole body, the neck alone and the saddle behind the shoulders 
remaining red. In the Senegambian race the red area is more extensive, 
whilst in the Moroccan race, although the white rump patch is large, the 
general colour of the body as well as the outer sides of the fore and hind 
legs is fawn. The horns are similar in all three races, being rather short 
and massive, and in shape somewhat resembling those of the South African 
springbok. In the Kordofan race they sometimes reach a length of fifteen 
inches, the average of specimens from the Lake Tchad district being 
slightly less. 
The addra or eastern representative of the Dama gazelle is now probably 
better known than either the dama of Senegal or the mhorr of Morocco, as 
it has been shot by many British sportsmen of late years. It is said to 
frequent very open desert tracts of country, where it is met with in small 
herds on the same ground sometimes as the addax and the white oryx. 
Like these desert species, it has been bleached almost white, and, like them, 
my friend Major Malcolm MacNeill, D.S.O., who has hunted and shot it 
in the deserts of Dongola, found it a very conspicuous animal. 
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