Antilopine Antelopes: Dwarf Antelopes of Eastern and Central Africa

Oribi

The term "dwarf antelope" can reasonably be applied to many different kinds of antelope that are smaller than, say a typical goat. In this common sense, it's not a precise term, and could refer to species that belong to quite different branches of the antelope family tree. When mammalian zoologists used the term in the 20th century, however, it was often more precise, referring to those thought to be most closely related to the gazelles as a branch within the "antilopine" subfamily of "typical" antelopes.

Technically, these dwarf antelopes were collectively referred to as "neotragines" and assumed to be a natural grouping within the antelopes more widely. Genetic analysis over the last couple of decades has muddied these waters considerably, not least because the genus for which the branch was named, Neotragus, turns out not to be closely related to the gazelles, and is something else entirely. Even if we look solely at those dwarf antelopes that we can still say belong to the antilopine subfamily, it turns out that they don't have a single common ancestor. Specifically, one of them is more closely related to gazelles than it is to any of the other members of its purported evolutionary branch.