Oryx gazella
Drawn from open occurrence records inside Namib-Naukluft, aggregated onto a 10 km grid.
Occurrence records measure where people looked and found something, which is not the same as where the animal is. This is a relative likelihood, not a probability.
Records exist for January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December. A quiet month can mean the animal was absent, or that nobody was looking.
The gemsbok is the desert answering the question of what an antelope should be. Half a meter of straight rapier horn on a 200-kilogram body, painted in gray, black and white like a heraldic shield, it thrives where most mammals die: it can live without drinking for weeks, taking moisture from roots, melons and night-cooled grass, and it survives body temperatures that would cook a human brain by cooling the blood bound for its head through a lattice of nasal vessels. Namibia has tens of thousands of them, and no photograph of a red dune is quite complete without one standing on it. Both sexes carry horns, and lionesses have been killed misjudging them.
Mixed herds of ten to forty on the plains; old bulls often turn solitary. Mostly placid, but a cornered gemsbok fences backwards with real intent.
Dune country at first light: side-lit gemsbok on a ridge line is the classic Namib frame. In Etosha, heat mirage at midday can be an effect rather than a flaw.
In hot months do not hold herds away from water or shade with a parked vehicle; heat is their real predator.