Antilopine Antelopes: Dik-diks

Kirk's dik-dik

The "antilopine" antelopes are, as their name might suggest, mostly typical examples of their kind. I suspect that when many people think of antelopes in general, gazelles and springbok are among the first to come to mind (although, to be fair, so might say, impalas). Traditionally, the antilopines have been divided into two main groups: the gazelle-like antelopes and the dwarf antelopes, with the latter surely being the less familiar to those of us living outside of Africa. Both groups have at least some species that don't fit the "typical" image of the subfamily. For the gazelle-like animals, that's probably the gerenuk and its relative, the dibatag.

Among the dwarf antelopes, we have the dik-diks.

While some researchers subdivide them further, four species of dik-dik are widely recognised, at least three of which are reasonably common within their respective homelands. This may partly be because they are too small to be worth hunting for meat - although, inevitably. this still happens from time to time. 

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. 

Antilopine Antelopes: Dwarf Antelopes of southern Africa

Steenbok

The "antilopine" subfamily of antelopes, so named because it happens to include the first animal scientifically described as an antelope rather than a goat, is itself divided into at least two major branches. There may or may not also be minor ones, depending on what you think is worthy of naming, but the two main ones are quite clear, and perhaps separated from one another around 12 million years ago towards the end of the Middle Miocene.

One of these groups contains the gazelles, along with the springbok, some other gazelle-like animals, and that "first" antelope mentioned above, the blackbuck. These are, for the most part, smallish slender, fast-running antelopes living in arid or semi-arid habitats in both Africa and Asia. The second group are the dwarf antelopes, found only in Africa and quite visibly different from gazelles.