Great Gobi B Strictly Protected Area is a

nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, funga, or features of geologic ...

Gobi Desert The Gobi Desert (, , ; ) is a large, cold desert and grassland region in North China and southern Mongolia. It is the sixth-largest desert in the world. The name of the desert comes from the Mongolian word ''gobi'', used to refer to all of th ...

, situated in the southwestern part of

Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...

at the border with

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. A similar reserve in a drier part of the Gobi exists further to the east - the Great Gobi A Strictly Protected Area.

Landscape

The reserve was established in 1975 and declared an International Biosphere Reserve in 1991. It comprises about 9000 km² of desert steppe, arid mountains, deserts and semi deserts. Temperatures can fall to -40 °C in winter and rise to +40 °C in the summer. Average snow cover lasts 97 days per year. There are low mountains in the east of the reserve and rolling hills in the west. The lowest parts are about 1000 m above sea level, the highest point is reached at the Chinese border at about 2840 m.Petra Kaczensky, Namtar Enkhsaikhan, Oyunsaikhan Ganbaatar, and Chris Walzer: ''The Great Gobi B Strictly Protected Area in Mongolia - refuge or sink for wolves Canis lupus in the Gobi''. Wildlife Biology 14(4):444-456. 2008

Fauna

The Przewalski horse, which was completely extinct in the wild, has been reintroduced to the reserve. Other larger ungulates, which are found in the reserve are the goitered gazelle, and the

Mongolian wild ass 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 Sibe ...

Siberian ibex The Siberian ibex (''Capra sibirica''), also known using regionalized names including Altai ibex, Asian ibex, Central Asian ibex, Gobi ibex, Himalayan ibex, Mongolian ibex or Tian Shan ibex, is a polytypic species of ibex, a wild relative of goa ...

are common in the mountains, whereas

argali The argali (''Ovis ammon''), also known as the mountain sheep, is a wild ovis, sheep native to the highlands of western East Asia, the Himalayas, Tibet, and the Altai Mountains. Description The name 'argali' is the Mongolian language, Mongolian ...

s have become rare. The main predator is the

grey wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, including the dog and dingo, though gr ...

Snow leopard The snow leopard (''Panthera uncia'') is a species of large cat in the genus ''Panthera'' of the family Felidae. The species is native to the mountain ranges of Central and South Asia. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because ...

s and

lynx A lynx ( ; : lynx or lynxes) is any of the four wikt:extant, extant species (the Canada lynx, Iberian lynx, Eurasian lynx and the bobcat) within the medium-sized wild Felidae, cat genus ''Lynx''. The name originated in Middle Engl ...

es are rare. Smaller carnivores are the

red fox The red fox (''Vulpes vulpes'') is the largest of the true foxes and one of the most widely distributed members of the order Carnivora, being present across the entire Northern Hemisphere including most of North America, Europe and Asia, plus ...

, the

corsac fox The corsac fox (''Vulpes corsac''), also known simply as a corsac, is a medium-sized fox found in steppes, semi-deserts and deserts in Central Asia, ranging into Mongolia and northern China. Since 2004, it has been classified as ''least concer ...

, the

wildcat The wildcat is a species complex comprising two small wild cat species: the European wildcat (''Felis silvestris'') and the African wildcat (''F. lybica''). The European wildcat inhabits forests in Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus, while th ...

, and the

Pallas cat The Pallas's cat (''Otocolobus manul''), also known as the manul, is a small wild cat with long and dense light grey fur, and rounded ears set low on the sides of the head. Its head-and-body length ranges from with a long bushy tail. It is w ...

. There are 110 families with nearly 60,000 heads of livestock in the reserve.

References

{{Authority control Protected areas of Mongolia Gobi Desert Nature reserves

Landscape

Fauna

See also

References