Saiga Antelope

steppe · endangered · weird nose · grassland

Huge nose mystery. The saiga has a strange, droopy nose that looks like a fuzzy straw or a small elephant's trunk. Scientists think this unusual nose helps filter dust when the antelope runs across the dry, windy steppe.

Ancient steppe wanderer. Long, long ago during the Pleistocene, saigas roamed all the way from the British Isles to what is now Alaska, living on vast grasslands called the mammoth steppe alongside woolly mammoths and other ice age giants.

Shrinking homeland. Today, most saigas live only in a few scattered areas of Russia and Kazakhstan, like the Ustyurt Plateau and Betpak-Dala desert. They have vanished completely from countries like Ukraine, China, and Romania where they once thrived.

Desert to desert travel. Some saiga herds migrate hundreds of miles south in winter to find better grazing, traveling from Kazakhstan down into Uzbekistan when the weather gets harsh and snowy.