Mongolian wild ass
subspecies of mammal
The Mongolian wild ass (Equus hemionus hemionus), also known as Mongolian khulan, is the nominate subspecies of the onager. It is found in southern Mongolia and northern China. It was previously found in eastern Kazakhstan and southern Siberia before being extirpated there through hunting. As of 2015, the Mongolian wild ass is listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN. In 2015, population estimates were approximately 42,000 individuals in Mongolia and around 5,000 individuals in northern China.
Taxonomy and etymology
The Mongolian wild ass is synonymous with the Gobi khulan (Equus hemionus luteus), also called the chigetai, dziggetai or simply khulan, Mongolian: Хулан.
The term khulan is cognate with the Turkmenian kulan.
Habitat and population
The Mongolian wild ass has become primarily confined to the desert-steppe, semi-desert and deserts habitats of Gobi Desert.
The Mongolian wild ass is the most widespread subspecies, although despite that, the subspecies lost about 50% of its former distribution range in Mongolia in the past 70 years. The former range of the Asiatic wild ass in East Asia between the seventeenth and the middle of the nineteenth century encompassed the greater part of Mongolia, areas of Siberia and Manchuria, the western part of Inner Mongolia and the northern part of Xinjiang. Its distribution range then dramatically reduced during the 1990s.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mongolian wild ass” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.