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The Red Sea is a landlocked sea that is globally significant in terms of the unique biodiversity and endemism of its marine species. In contrast, the terrestrial biodiversity on its islands is poor and mainly composed of species present also on the mainland. To profile the non-volant terrestrial mammalian fauna, we reviewed all available records in...
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... Red Sea is a branch of the Indian Ocean and is regarded by oceanographers as an ocean in formation. It has the shape of a large and narrow gulf, extending north- south and separating the eastern coast of North Africa from the western Arabian Peninsula (Fig. 1). This almost land-locked sea is connected artificially to the north with the Mediterranean, via the Suez Canal, and to the south with the Gulf of Aden (Indian Ocean), via the Bab el Man- deb, a narrow strait just 30 km wide and only 130 metres deep at the Hanish Sill. Thus, the major currents of these connecting seas fail to enter the ...
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... shrew is distri- buted to Sudan and the Sahelian savannah of Sudan and Mali, with a single record from Ethiopia ( Hutterer, 2005). The Asian house shrew, Suncus murinus (L., 1766), has been recorded on Sawākin (Heuglin, 1877;�nderson & De Winton, 1902;and Kock, 1980), on the Dahlak islands (Heuglin, 1861), where it was observed to be quite com- mon, on Massawa and Dahlak Kebir (Rüppell, 1840;Del Prato, 1891;Sordelli, 1902;Parisi, 1917;yalden et al., 1976;Kock, 1980), and on Massawa (Heuglin, 1861;Parisi, 1917), where both authors identified the soricid with the former taxonomic name of Crocidura (Pachyura) crassicaudata (Lichtenstein, 1834). ...
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... (L., 1758), on Sawākin (BMNH 97.12.21.1) and Massawa (MSNG 1458 and 1463); the mountain gazel- le, G. gazella (Pallas, 1766), in the Farasan archipelago (Thouless, & �l Bassri, 1991;Masseti, 2010a;Lerp et al., 2013;Wronski, 2013) as well as on al-Hanish al- Kabir (Dollman, 1927;�l-Jumaily, 1998), and possibly Sumayr (cf. Bruce of Kinnaird, 1790) (Fig. 11); and the enigmatic G. arabica, once seemingly found in the Fa- rasan archipelago, but also on the nearby Arabian coast ...
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... contrast, Soemmerring's gazelle (genus Nanger) occurs only on Dahlak Kebir (Fig. 12). The earliest re- cord of gazelles from the Dahlak archipelago was by Bru- ce of Kinnaird (1790) ...
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... recently, reports on the island of Dahlak Kebir refer the local gazelles to N. soemmerringii, albeit to a dwarf variety very likely arising from the "island rule" ef- fect (Bolton, 1973;Chiozzi et al., 2014a;Kingdon, 1982;Yalden et al., 1984;yalden et al., 1996;De Marchi, 2004) (Fig. 13). The unsettled issues concerning the specific identification of the extant gazelles of Dahlak Kebir com- (Cretzschmar, 1828), is present on the island of Dahlak Kebir with a variety of reduced dimensions, very likely caused by the "island rule" effect. The size dif- ference between a continental subspecies (N. s. berberana Matschie, ...
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... al. 1996). This insular population may likely form a yet undescribed subspecies (Gippoliti, 2013). Based on photographs (De Marchi, 2002) and careful mor- phometric comparisons (Chiozzi et al., 2014a), it is quite small sized, and with horns in the male similar to those of the already mentioned Somali subspecies, N. s. berberana (Matschie, 1893) (Fig. 14), but with the tips only slight- ly curved inwards and without the characteristic hook (Oriani & Castiglioni, 2003). Sequences of cytochrome b mitochondrial DN� also confirmed that these gazelles are a dwarf variant of the larger mainland Soemmerring's gazelle, suggesting that this island population may ha- ve been established not long ...
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... only slight- ly curved inwards and without the characteristic hook (Oriani & Castiglioni, 2003). Sequences of cytochrome b mitochondrial DN� also confirmed that these gazelles are a dwarf variant of the larger mainland Soemmerring's gazelle, suggesting that this island population may ha- ve been established not long ago from a small subset of Fig. 14 -In the foreground, two sub-adult domestic Somali goats, once widely known also as Galla (male, black; female, spotted). Both seem not to exceed 70 cm at the withers. This is approximately the height also of the Soemmerring's gazelle, Nanger soemmerringii (Cretzschmar, 1828), in the background, which is in contrast with the range of ...
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... et al., 2007;Torunsky et al., 2010;Kamal M. Ibrahim, 2010;pers. comm.). On Dahlak Kebir, this arid-adapted gazelle has practically no preda- tor. Ospreys occasionally use the ungulate bones for the construction of their nests where, according to Roghi & Baschieri (1954), osteological remains of the gazelles ha- ve sporadically been found (Fig. 15). The local abundance of gazelles and the presence of villages also allows local persistence of a population of winged scavengers, such as the Egyptian vulture, Neophron percnopterus (L., 1758) and the hooded vulture, Necrosyrtes monachus (Tem- minck, 1823) (De Marchi et al., ...
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... enigma is the past presence of the above-men- tioned gazelle on the Farasan archipelago. So far, the on- ly endemic mammal known on the Red Sea islands is the Arabian gazelle, G. arabica (Lichtenstein, 1827), which was originally reported from the Farasan islands (Masseti, 2010a). This intriguing ungulate is known only from a single male specimen preserved in the Berlin Museum (ZMB MAM 2115, skull and skin labelled: "Type" of Ga- zella arabica Hemprich and Ehrenberg) (Lydekker, 1914;Masseti, 2010a) (Fig. 16). ...
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... the Arabian gazelle, G. arabica (Lichtenstein, 1827), which was originally reported from the Farasan islands (Masseti, 2010a). This intriguing ungulate is known only from a single male specimen preserved in the Berlin Museum (ZMB MAM 2115, skull and skin labelled: "Type" of Ga- zella arabica Hemprich and Ehrenberg) (Lydekker, 1914;Masseti, 2010a) (Fig. 16). It was apparently collected by Hemprich andEhrenberg in 1825 (Neumann, 1906;Harrison, 1968;Groves, 1983Groves, , 1985, but the specimen may not actually come from the Farasan. Therefore, its former di- stribution and status may never be known (Groves, 1983;Mallon & Kingswood, 2001;Mallon & Hoffman, 2008). Originally described as ...
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... (1906) was the first to query the inclusion of the Hemprich and Ehrenberg specimens in the same taxon. He identified the type of Gazella arabica as 'an old buck , 1758), sometimes use their bones as building material for their nests, some authors have hypothesised that these birds, which are notoriously piscivorous, can occasionally prey upon the gazelles (see Roghi & Baschieri, 1954) (photo by Giuseppe De Marchi). (Lichtenstein, 1827), includes this skull and a skin, both designated with catalogue number ZMB_MAM_2115 (Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin). ...
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... al. 2013) or Syria ( Bärmann et al., 2014), while the skin sequence is nested within the southern (or Arabian) G. gazella; the latter matches the genetics of the gazelles now inhabiting the Farasan archipelago, which are regarded as a distin- ct subspecies, G. g. farasani Thouless & �l Bassri, 1991, of the mountain gazelle (Wronski et al., 2010) (Fig. 17). Therefore, we have no evidence supporting that other ga- zelle species inhabited the Farasan archipelago except the present G. g. farasani. In fact, if we exclude the lectotype, no other specimens were ever confidently assigned to ...
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... Gazella arabica. The Sarso island racer, Platyceps insulanus Mertens, 1965, is known only from a single specimen captured by W. Kost along the coast of the island of Sarso, a low-lying coral atoll of the Farasan archipelago, in November 1964 during the "Meteor" Expedition launched by the Senckenberg- Museum in the Indian Ocean (Mertens, 1965) (Fig. 18). The holotype specimen is now preserved at the Sencken- berg Museum in Frankfurt (SMF 60027: 1 male adult, W. Kost, Saudi �rabia, 26/11/1964) (Fig. 19). Based on Kost's report, but also on the subsequent taxonomic de- scription by Mertens (1965), the snake has never been se- en again since, either on Sarso or on other nearby islands ...
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... of the island of Sarso, a low-lying coral atoll of the Farasan archipelago, in November 1964 during the "Meteor" Expedition launched by the Senckenberg- Museum in the Indian Ocean (Mertens, 1965) (Fig. 18). The holotype specimen is now preserved at the Sencken- berg Museum in Frankfurt (SMF 60027: 1 male adult, W. Kost, Saudi �rabia, 26/11/1964) (Fig. 19). Based on Kost's report, but also on the subsequent taxonomic de- scription by Mertens (1965), the snake has never been se- en again since, either on Sarso or on other nearby islands (Masseti, 2014). Hence, the endemic Sarso island racer is known only from the holotype and a sloughed skin. Its unclear status, however, has led several ...
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... been se- en again since, either on Sarso or on other nearby islands (Masseti, 2014). Hence, the endemic Sarso island racer is known only from the holotype and a sloughed skin. Its unclear status, however, has led several authors, such as Leviton et al. (1992) and Egan (2007), to omit it from their checklists of Arabian herpetofauna. Some doubts Fig. 18 -The Sarso island racer, Platyceps insulanus (Mertens, 1965), photographed in November 1964 on the namesake island of the Far- asan archipelago during the "Meteor" Expedition in the Indian Ocean launched by the Senckenberg-Museum (from Mertens, 1965). have also been raised on where the Sarso island racer had actually been collected. ...
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... especially in the southern-and western-most territories of the Red Sea. New ecological equilibria caused significant alterations in the natural distribution of several biological elements, but also the extinction of many others. Allochthonous ver- tebrates also began to be introduced -both deliberately and involuntarily -by man to the islands (Fig. 21). Al- though, for example, the earliest literary evidence of the occurrence of gazelles on the Red Sea islands goes back only to Ottoman times (Bruce of Kinnaird, 1790;�nnesley Mountnorris, 1811;Rüppell, 1838;Heuglin, 1861;Benardelli, 2004;Tuchscherer, 2004), different species of these ungulates must have been introduced since very ...
Citations
... The small mammals of Farasan were studied over the past 30 years (Jennings, 1988;Moeschler et al., 1990;Masseti, 2010;Masseti et al., 2015;Soares & Wronski, 2021). They reported one rodent species, Acomys dimidiatus (Cretzschmar, 1826), and three bat species; Pipistrellus sp., Asellia patrizii De Beaux, 1931 andRhinopoma cystops Thomas, 1903. ...
... Human settlements near main ports such as Jeddah were plagued by R. rattus (Büttiker & Harrison, 1982). Masseti et al. (2015) summarized all previous records of Rattus norvegicus (Berkenhout, 1769) and R. rattus as well as Mus musculus Linnaeus, 1758 from Dahlak Archipelago, Eritrea. All these three species are considered as invasive. ...
... The Northeast African spiny mouse, Acomys cahirinus (É. Geoffroy, 1803) was recorded from Dur Ghella, a small islet in Dahlak Archipelago (Masseti et al., 2015). Remains of R. cystops, A. dimidiatus, and G. nanus were found in the Barn Owl remains collected in As Saqid Island (Al Ahmary et al., 2023). ...
Four bats and three rodents species were reported from Farasan Island. Triaenops persicus Dobson, 1871 is reported for the first time from Saudi Arabia based on echolocation calls. The presence of Pipistrellus kuhlii (Kuhl, 1817), Asellia patrizii De Beaux, 1931, Rattus rattus (Linnaeus, 1758), and Gerbillus nanus Blanford, 1875 are confirmed.
... Gazella gazella (mountain gazelle) Given the phenotypic details highlighted above, the bronze gazelles from Herculaneum ( Figure 1) are more reminiscent of artistic depictions of Gazella gazella (mountain gazelle) than of G. subgutturosa subgutturosa (Persian gazelle). With several subspecies, G. gazella is currently dispersed from Sinai and the Levant to a large part of the Arabian Peninsula, and some islands in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf (Masseti 2004(Masseti , 2010bGroves and Grubb 2011;Masseti et al. 2015). 7 A small population has been reported in the Hatay province of Turkey, not far from the border with Syria (Kankiliç et al. 2012). ...
Paintings and sculptures depicting gazelles ( Gazella spp.) are frequent in Ancient Roman art. Images of gazelles have been discovered during the archaeological explorations of Herculaneum and Pompeii, devastated by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in ad 79. Two bronze statues of ungulates from the Villa of the Papyri, Herculaneum, now on display at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (National Archaeological Museum of Naples), have not been correctly identified, consequently causing erroneous speculation about their cultural significance. The aim of this paper is to suggest which gazelle species inspired these artefacts, and to also discuss the wider context of the artistic representations of gazelles from Herculaneum and Pompeii and their surroundings.
... The fauna and flora of the Farasan Islands are becoming increasingly well documented in recent years. Studies of various groups of organisms concur that the levels of endemism are very low, if any, which corresponds to the general trend of other Red Sea islands and archipelagos (Masseti et al., 2015). For example, there are no known endemic plants (Al-Qthanin & Al-Yasi, 2021) or beetles in the Farasan Islands (Abdel-Dayem et al., 2020), and the taxonomic status of the only endemic mammal, the Farasan gazelle, is dubious (Bärmann et al., 2013). ...
The systematic, phylogenetic, and biogeographic aspects of the rich squamate fauna of the Arabian Peninsula are becoming increasingly well understood. The Arabian members of the gecko genus Hemidactylus, the most diverse genus among Arabian squamates, have been the subject of several phylogenetic revisions in recent years. However, large parts of the peninsula lacked thorough sampling, for example, the coastal hyper-arid plains along the Red Sea and some offshore islands. In this study, we examine the genetic, morphological, and ecological diversification of a Hemidactylus clade that straddles the Red Sea and contains ten Arabian and three African species. We compiled a genetic dataset of seven markers (two mitochondrial and five nuclear) to reconstruct their phylogenetic relationships and collected morphological data to assess the level of interspecific morphological disparification. Our results support the existence of four yet undescribed species within the clade – two from Arabia and two from Ethiopia. We provide taxonomic descriptions of the two new Arabian species, one from the western Asir Mountains foothills and one from the Farasan Islands. The new species from the Asir Mountains foothills highlights the role of the southern Arabian coastal desert as an important yet often overlooked local biodiversity hotspot. The new species from the Farasan Islands represents the second vertebrate species endemic to the archipelago. Together with the descriptions of the diagnostic features of both species, we provide complete annotated mitochondrial genomes of both holotypes and of holotypes of two other species from the clade to characterize their mitogenomic composition and architecture.
... Previous preliminary studies had suggested that mitochondrial cytb gene-based estimates of genetic differentiation between the island and continental forms were minimal, leading to the conclusion that the separation of the two forms is likely to be recent (cf. Masseti et al. 2015). ...
... Two of the insular populations living on islands off the opposite shores of the Red Sea (the Dahlak and Farasan archipelagos) seem to follow the island rule as they had been recognized as dwarf variants of their continental relatives (Bolton 1973;Kingdon 1982;Yalden et al. 1984Yalden et al. , 1996Thouless and Al Bassri 1991;Masseti 2010;Chiozzi et al. 2014;Masseti et al. 2015). ...
... We excluded from the historical records gazelle specimens collected on Massawa and Sawākin at the turn of the twentieth century (cf. Masseti et al. 2015), because we deem not credible the natural occurrence of gazelles on these two small islands intensely inhabited since Ottoman times (Tuchscherer 2004), and we believe that these specimens most likely originated from the facing mainland. ...
The taxonomy of gazelles (Bovidae: Antilopinae) has been debated at length. Many of the species and subspecies were historically discriminated mostly on subtle and individually variable phenotypic differences, often on the basis of few, sometimes controversial museum specimens or captive individuals of uncertain origin. The resulting taxonomic confusion is particularly evident for insular populations, which often show slight phenotypic variations. We systematically review and update the past and present distribution of insular gazelles in the circum-Arabian seas, using the literature and reliable websites. Moreover, in light of the available genetic information, we discuss the taxonomic status of four endemic taxa, two of dwarf size. One or more gazelle species are or were present on 45 islands. The archaeozoological and historical data support an anthropochorous origin of most of these populations as a meat source. Lately, food supplied gazelles have been introduced for cultural reasons on many islands of the Persian Gulf. The nine molecularly studied insular populations show low genetic differentiation from their mainland relatives, which suggests their recent origin. Considering the limited genetic differentiation from the geographically closest continental population, we reassign Nanger soemmerringii debeauxi to the nominotypical subspecies. We advocate phenotypic plasticity, triggered by scarce food resources, as the most likely cause of dwarfism in the gazelles of Dahlak and Farasan archipelagos of the Red Sea. We stress the need to avoid unnecessary taxonomic proliferation before deep integrative research has been carried out, and we highlight the importance of research on phenotypic plasticity in insular gazelles.
... Leviton's Cylindrical Skink (4) is known from only one location in the far southwest at Khasawiyah (Aloufi et al., 2019). Meanwhile, the Sarso Island Racer (5) has not been reported since it was discovered in 1964 from a single specimen in the Farasan archipelago in the Red Sea (Masseti, 2014;Masseti, Marchi & Chiozzi, 2015). Again, these species do not appear to be the focus of any specific conservation or research effort. ...
Globally, the resources devoted to biodiversity conservation are insufficient to prevent biodiversity loss, forcing conservation agencies to prioritize which species receive active protection. Accordingly, we developed an objective method for prioritizing the terrestrial vertebrates of Saudi Arabia, a country with limited baseline ecological data and limited conservation effort. Ninety-seven species were regarded as High Conservation Priority on the basis that they are listed as globally or regionally threatened and/or have more than 50% of their range within Saudi Arabia. We then scored these 97 species according to measures of extinction risk, level of endemicity, national responsibility, and phylogenetic distinctness to create a ranked list of High Conservation Priority species. The ten highest conservation priority species in Saudi Arabia are all freshwater fish or small reptiles, with the highest ranked species being the critically endangered Arabian Bream Acanthobrama hadiyahensis. We developed GIS heat maps of the summed conservation priority scores for the 97 High Conservation Priority species, which reveal the Asir Mountains as the highest conservation priority area within the Kingdom. The method we developed can be used on any group of species in any geographicarea and can be easily revised as additional data arise.
... Directional selective response to the ecological factors above and genetic drift has been proposed to be implicated (Millien 2006;Van Vuren and Bakker 2009). In this study, we focus on the evolutionary and conservation implications of a striking reduction in body size attributed to the Island Rule (Chiozzi et al. 2014), which has been observed in an insular island population of Soemmerring's gazelles, Nanger soemmerringii Cretzschmar, as far as a century ago (Masseti et al. 2015;Yalden et al. 1996). ...
... The fitness increase due to accelerated reproduction in low competition and predation environments leads to dwarfism (Raia and Meiri 2006). Masseti et al. (2015) reported dearth of endemic ground fauna on the Red Sea islands and that the few mammalian taxa present are anthropochorous species that are shared with the mainland. We propose that there is limited interspecific competition and predation affecting the Dahlak Kebir gazelles and that this has led to a reduction in their body size over generations. ...
This study focuses on the taxonomic, evolutionary and conservation implications of a striking reduction in body size previously observed in an island population of gazelles by comparing the genetic structure of island and mainland populations. Mitochondrial sequence diversity of the mainland population was found to be comparable to that of other true gazelles of East Africa. We discuss this in the context of the prolonged armed conflict in our study region. In contrast, the gazelles on Dahlak Kebir, one of the over 200 islands and islets of the Dahlak archipelago on the Red Sea, were found to be genetically depauperate. Nucleotide and haplotype diversity estimates were a sixth and a third of that of the mainland population respectively. Using estimates of Tajima’s D statistic, we inferred that the Dahlak population has undergone expansion after a recent bottleneck. A minimum spanning genealogical network of mitochondrial control region sequences produced testable hypotheses on the route and timing of the colonization of Dahlak Kebir by gazelles from the mainland. Our mitochondrial DNA dataset has resolved the taxonomic ambiguity of the island gazelles. Their genetic distinctiveness and, their striking conformity to the Island Rule that was highlighted in a previous study, are discussed from evolutionary and conservation perspectives.
... Tedesco Zammarano (1922) collected the subspecies N. soemmerringi sybillae Matschie, 1912 where the Scinfà meets the Arcà (about 12°65'N 36° 05' E). Yalden et al., (1996) and Masseti et al. (2015) discussed the species identification of gazelles on the Dahlak Kebir Island. Much attention has been attracted by the identification of Baschieri Salvadori, the zoologist of the 1953 Spedizione Subacquea Italiana nel Mar Rosso (Baschieri Salvadori 1954), who considered them to be Gazella isabella Gray, 1846, currently considered a synonym of G. dorcas. ...
This paper discusses and reviews the current taxonomic status and zoogeographical distribution of the mammals of Yemen. Data were collected from previous literature in addition to field observations during 2017–2018. This checklist includes 100 species of wild (terrestrial and marine) mammals currently occurring and those that went extinct within the last century in Yemen. Only wild mammals were included and domesticated species were excluded. These 100 species belong to 11 orders, 28 families, and 64 genera. In this paper, the current status and distribution of three Erinaceomorphs, seven Soricomorphs, 34 Bats, 16 Carnivores, seven Artiodactyls, one Lagomorph, 20 Rodents, one Hyracoidea, nine Cetaceans, one Sirenia, and one Primate were reported. According to the evaluation of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN): 70 species were listed as Least Concern (LC), two as Extinct (EX), one as Critically Endangered (CR), two as Endangered (EN), eight as Vulnerable (VU), five as Near Threatened (NT), and 12 as Data Deficient (DD). This paper also discusses the current main threats to the wild mammals in Yemen.
The Farasan archipelago—like its African counterpart, the Dahlak Archipelago—is a unique assembly of coral-formed islands located on the Farasan Bank at the Arabian site of the southern Red Sea. The rugged surface and the tropical-arid climate form a harsh landscape in which only a few mammal species have managed to survive. This chapter presents a short overview about the mammal fauna of the Farasan archipelago—comprising only two bat species, one carnivore, one ungulate and two rodent species—and subsequently provides an in-depth insight into the ecology of ‘idmi’, the Arabian gazelle (Gazella arabica), on the Farasan Islands. The archipelago has been protected since 1988, primarily to preserve its Arabian gazelle population, but also for its exceptional conservation value as a marine reserve. The protected area harbours probably the largest population of Arabian gazelles worldwide and represents a phylogenetically distinct population diluted by repeated introductions of mainland Arabian gazelles. After discussing the phylogeny, taxonomy and a putative island dwarfism of the gazelle population, the chapter reports on habitat preferences and the limiting resources. Most recent research on population structure, social organization and population development is summarized and related to the conservation of the gazelles in the Farasan Islands Protected Area. Since competition with livestock and the transmission of zoonotic diseases pose eminent threats to the survival of the population, the interface between domestic animals and the gazelles is highlighted. Finally, the chapter shades some light on the phylogeny and taxonomy of other island dwelling gazelles in Arabian waters.
