DID the arabian oryx occur in Iran

Abstract

The Arabian Oryx is traditionally considered to have occurred in the Arabian Peninsula, Jordan, Syria and Iraq. No data suggest its presence east of the Euphrates and yet the species is occasionally found in the art of south-western and south-eastern Iran. The examples discussed come from glyptic material from Susa and from the chlorite vessels of the Jiroft region. These representations could be the indicator of small relict populations of Oryx trapped on the Iranian side of the Persian Gulf by the rise of sea levels in the early Holocene. The extinction in the wild of the Arabian Oryx, Oryx leucoryx, then its subsequent reintroduction, has attracted public and scholarly attention to the species. Its range is traditionally considered to be limited to the Ara- bian Peninsula and the Mesopotamian semi-desert steppes of Jordan, Syria and Iraq, east to the Euphrates, regions where it persisted until the 19 th cen- tury. No zoological or archaeozoological data indicate the presence of the