[2] It is a bovid, and the smallest member of the genus Oryx, native to desert and steppe areas of the Arabian Peninsula.

[4] The Arabian oryx' coat is an almost luminous white, the undersides and legs are brown, and black stripes occur where the head meets the neck, on the forehead, on the nose, and going from the horn down across the eye to the mouth.

A few were reported in Jordan into the 1930s, but by the mid-1930s, the only remaining populations were in the Nafud Desert in northwestern Saudi Arabia and the Rub' al Khali in the south.

[6] Arabian oryxes prefer to range in gravel deserts or hard sand, where their speed and endurance will protect them from most predators and hunters on foot.

[2] Arabian oryxes have been reintroduced to Oman, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Syria, and Jordan.

This puts the Arabian oryx well over the threshold of 250 mature individuals needed to qualify for endangered status.

[7] The diets of the Arabian oryx consist mainly of grasses, but they eat a large variety of vegetation, including buds, herbs, fruit, tubers and roots.

[8] When the Arabian oryx is not wandering its habitat or eating, it digs shallow depressions in the soft ground under shrubs or trees for resting.

[11] A dominance hierarchy is created within the herd by posturing displays, which avoid the danger of serious injury their long, sharp horns could potentially inflict.

During the summer, when droughts are common in the desert environments where it lives, the Arabian oryx will drastically reduce its minimal fasting metabolic rate by lying completely inactive beneath shade trees during the day and ranging over smaller areas at night to forage.

[14] Because of these changes in behaviour and physiology, it was shown that Arabian oryx can reduce their urine volume, faecal water loss, and resting metabolic rate by at least 50%.

[16] The Arabian oryx is the national animal of Jordan, Oman, the United Arab Emirates,[17] Bahrain, and Qatar.

[21] Another source for the concept may have originated from the translation of the Hebrew word re'em into Greek as μονόκερως, monokeros, in the Septuagint.

The first release, to Oman, was attempted with Arabian oryxes from the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

One of the largest populations is found in Mahazat as-Sayd Protected Area, a large, fenced reserve in Saudi Arabia, covering more than 2,000 km2 (770 sq mi).

[1] On June 28, 2007, Oman's Arabian Oryx Sanctuary was the first site ever to be removed from the UNESCO World Heritage List.

[31][needs update] In June 2011, the Arabian oryx was relisted as vulnerable by the IUCN Red List.

The IUCN estimated there were more than 1,200 Arabian oryx in the wild as of 4 December 2020[update] 2016, with 6,000–7,000 held in captivity worldwide in zoos, preserves, and private collections.

Some of these are in large, fenced enclosures (free-roaming), including those in Syria (Al Talila), Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE.