The rock hyrax (; Procavia capensis), also called dassie, Cape hyrax, rock rabbit, and (from some interpretations of a word used in the King James Bible) coney, is a medium-sized terrestrial mammal native to Africa and the Middle East. Commonly referred to in South Africa as the dassie (; ), it is one of the five living species of the order Hyracoidea, and the only one in the genus Procavia. Rock hyraxes weigh and have short ears.
Rock hyraxes are found at elevations up to above sea level in habitats with rock crevices, allowing them to escape from predators. They are the only extant terrestrial afrotherians in the Middle East. Hyraxes typically live in groups of 10–80 animals, and forage as a group. They have been reported to use sentries to warn of the approach of predators. Having incomplete thermoregulation, they are most active in the morning and evening, although their activity pattern varies substantially with season and climate.
Over most of its range, the rock hyrax is not endangered, and in some areas is considered a minor pest. In Ethiopia, Israel, and Jordan, it is a reservoir of the leishmaniasis parasite.
Along with other hyrax species and the sirenians, this species is the most closely related to the elephant. An unrelated, convergently evolved mammal of similar habits and appearance is the rock cavy of Brazil.
Characteristics
Rock hyraxes are squat and heavily built, with adults reaching a length of and weighing around , with a slight sexual dimorphism, males being about 10% heavier than females. Their fur is thick and grey-brown, although this varies strongly between different environments, from dark brown in wetter habitats, to light gray in desert-living individuals. Hyrax size (as measured by skull length and humerus diameter) is correlated to precipitation, probably because of the effect on preferred hyrax forage.
Prominent in and apparently unique to hyraxes is the dorsal gland, which excretes an odour used for social communication and territorial marking. The gland is most clearly visible in dominant males.
The rock hyrax has a pointed head, short neck, and rounded ears. It has long, black whiskers on its muzzle. The rock hyrax has a prominent pair of long, pointed tusk-like upper incisors, which are reminiscent of the elephant, to which the hyrax is distantly related. The fore feet are plantigrade, and the hind feet are semi-digitigrade. The soles of the feet have large, soft pads that are kept moist with sweat-like secretions. In males, the testes are permanently abdominal, another anatomical feature that hyraxes share with elephants and sirenians.
Thermoregulation in rock hyraxes has been subject to much research, as their body temperature varies with a diurnal rhythm. Animals kept in constant environmental conditions also display such variation, and this internal mechanism may be related to water balance regulation.
Distribution and geographic variation
The rock hyrax occurs widely across sub-Saharan Africa in disjunct northern and southern populations; it is absent from the Congo Basin and Madagascar. The distribution encompasses southern Algeria, Libya, Egypt, and the Middle East, with populations in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Arabian Peninsula. The northern subspecies was introduced to Jebel Hafeet, which is on the border of Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
The shade of their pelts varies individually and regionally. In particular, the dorsal patches (present in both sexes) of the central populations are very variable, ranging from yellow to black, or flecked. In outlying populations, these are more constant in colour, black in P. c. capensis, cream in P. c. welwitschii, and orange in P. c. ruficeps. A larger, longer-haired population is abundant in the moraines in the alpine zone of Mount Kenya.
Subspecies
The subspecies, which are sometimes elevated to full species, are:
P. c. capensis (Pallas, 1766) – Cape rock hyrax, native to South Africa and Namibia
P. c. habessinicus (Hemprich and Ehrenberg, 1832) – Ethiopian rock hyrax, native to northeastern Africa and Arabia
P. c. johnstoni Thomas, 1894 – black-necked rock hyrax, native to central and East Africa
P. c. ruficeps (Hemprich and Ehrenberg, 1832) – red-headed rock hyrax, native to the southern Sahara
P. c. welwitschii (Gray, 1868) – Kaokoveld rock hyrax, native to the Kaokoveld of Namibia