Dorcas gazelle  (Gazella dorcas)

The dorcas gazelle is found in North Africa and the Middle East (3). The ‘possible' range of the various subspecies includes Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia and Western Sahara (5) (6). In Jordan it is considered to be one of the country's most threatened species (3). G.d.isabella is found in Israel and Sinai, and along the coast of the Red Sea on the borders of Saudi Arabia (7). The Moroccan dorcas gazelle (Gazella dorcas massaesyla) is found only in the northern plains of Morocco (3) and Pelzen's gazelle (Gazella dorcas pelzelni) is found in Somalia (5).

Dorcas gazelles inhabit flat grassland and steppe in Morocco, and desert, sub-desert, and steppe in Algeria, where they tend to avoid very sandy areas (3). In Libya they occur in a range of dry open habitats but show a strong preference for vegetated dry watercourses, known as wadis. In the Western Desert of Egypt it prefers oasis-type depressions and used to occur along the coast of the Mediterranean; it also inhabits wadis in this area. In Jordan they are found in flat gravel-plains, mixed gravel and dune areas and gravel plateaux, and in Israel they are typically found in wadis, where acacia trees are able to grow due to the presence of underground water sources (3).