A fascinating discovery has been made in Israel - a rare six-legged mountain gazelle has been spotted! This male gazelle has an extra pair of legs growing from its back, but experts say it appears to be coping well with the additional appendages.
The unusual find was reported by an Israeli army reservist who came across the unique creature in late March. After noticing something peculiar on its back, the reservist snapped a photo and shared it with the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI), an environmental non-profit organization.
According to Amir Balaban, a conservationist for SPNI, the six-legged gazelle has navigated a challenging journey from surviving a complex birth to evading predators as a young fawn, eventually maturing and thriving in the Nahal HaBasor reserve.
The Nahal HaBasor reserve, located in Israel's southern Negev desert near the war-torn Gaza Strip, is hailed as a crucial habitat for the Israeli gazelle population, especially during times of conflict.
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"Contrary to expectations, the gazelle is healthy, strong, and has three female gazelles and a fawn from the previous fall. He has been seen hosting the females in the fields and the extra legs on his back pose no challenge to him," Balaban said.
SPNI attributed the gazelle's extra legs to a rare genetic disorder called organ proliferation, or polymelia.
The animal's genetic abnormality was most likely hereditary, Balaban said. According to SPNI, it occurrs frequently in cattle, birds and reptiles, but this is the first known instance of polymelia being documented in a mountain gazelle in the Middle East.
Mountain gazelles are a protected wild species in Israel. There are estimated to be only around 5,000 gazelles of the endangered species remaining in the wild.
While mountain gazelles can be found mostly in Israel, they live across the region and can also be spotted in the Palestinian territories, Turkey, and parts of Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
