[5] Due to its slow movements, the addax is an easy target for its predators: humans, lions, leopards, cheetahs and African wild dogs.

English naturalist Richard Lydekker stated their type locality to be probably Senegambia, though he did not have anything to support the claim.

Finally, from a discussion in 1898, it became more probable that British hunters or collectors obtained the addax from the part of the Sahara in Tunisia.

[3] The generic name Addax is thought to be obtained from an Arabic word meaning a wild animal with crooked horns.

Bedouins use another name for the addax, the Arabic bakr (or bagr) al wahsh, which literally means "the cow of the wild".

Pictures in a tomb, dating back to 2500 BCE, show at least the partial domestication of the addax by the ancient Egyptians.

The number of addax captured by a person were considered an indicator of his high social and economic position in the society.

[8] The pygarg ("white-buttocked") beast mentioned in Deuteronomy 14:5 is believed by Henry Baker Tristram to have been an addax.

In the winter, it is greyish-brown with white hindquarters and legs, and long, brown hair on the head, neck, and shoulders.

Long, black hairs stick out between their curved and spiralling horns, ending in a short mane on the neck.

[14] In an exotic ranch in Texas, an addax was found host to the nematodes Haemonchus contortus and Longistrongylus curvispiculum in its abomasum,[4] of which the former was dominant.

[5] In captivity, males show signs of territoriality and mate guarding while captive females establish dominance hierarchies, with oldest females holding highest rank [4] Herds are more likely to be found along the northern edge of the tropical rain system during the summer and move north as winter falls.

[17] Due to its slow movements, the addax is an easy target for predators such as humans, lions, leopards, cheetahs and African wild dogs.

It was found that food retention time was long, taken as an adaptation to a diet including a high proportion of slow fermenting grasses; while the long fluid retention time could be interpreted to be due to water-saving mechanisms with low water turnover and a roomy rumen.

[19] The addax lives in desert terrain where it eats grasses and leaves of what shrubs, leguminous herbs and bushes are available.

Primarily a grazer, its staple foods include Aristida, Panicum, and Stipagrostis, and it will only consume browse, such as leaves of Acacia trees in the absence of these grasses.

By contrast, when feeding on Panicum grass, the drier outer leaves are left alone while it eats the tender inner shoots and seeds.

[23] Formerly, the addax was widespread in the Sahelo-Saharan region of Africa, west of the Nile Valley and all countries sharing the Sahara Desert; but today the only known self-sustaining population is present in the Termit Massif Reserve (Niger).

Rare nomads may be seen in northern Niger, southern Algeria and Libya; and the addax is rumoured to be present along the Mali/Mauritania border, though there have been no confirmed sightings.

Roadkill, firearms for easy hunting and nomadic settlements near waterholes (their dry-season feeding places) have also decreased their numbers.

Other threats include chronic droughts in the deserts, habitat destruction due to more human settlements and agriculture.

Fewer than 500 individuals are thought to exist in the wild today, most of the animals being found between the Termit area of Niger, the Bodélé region of western Chad,[1] and the Aoukar in Mauritania.

[25] Today there are over 600 addaxes in Europe, Yotvata Hai-Bar Nature Reserve (Israel), Sabratha (Libya), Giza Zoo (Egypt), North America, Japan and Australia under captive breeding programmes.

Addaxes are legally protected in Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria; hunting of all gazelles is forbidden in Libya and Egypt.

Although enormous reserves, such as the Hoggar Mountains and Tasilli in Algeria, the Ténéré in Niger, the Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim Faunal Reserve in Chad, and the newly established Wadi Howar National Park in Sudan, cover areas where the addax previously occurred, some do not keep addaxes at the present time because they lack the resources.

Reintroductions in the wild are ongoing in Jebil National Park (Tunisia) and Grand Erg Oriental (the Sahara), and another is planned for Morocco.