Tibetan Antelope on the Changtang

Tibetan Antelope on the Changtang is an original illustration set in Changtang Plateau, Tibet. It lies in the subtropics, where the climate is tundra — too cold for trees.

A small herd crosses an immense high cold plain, the foreground males showing pale fawn bodies, white bellies and long slender upright horns. Short sparse vegetation covers gravelly ground, and distant ranges close the horizon under thin bright air.

Why is this antelope's undercoat so fine and warm?

The undercoat beneath that plain fawn hair is among the finest and warmest of any animal, which is exactly the adaptation required to live year-round above four thousand metres. The horns are almost straight and very long, used in display. A plain this vast, this high and this bare is a cold desert plateau, not a steppe.

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