Ancient Romans may have used Onagers to pull large weapons used for war. Onagers where used as the engines for ancient tanks. The Onager′s bad temperament may have made them good war machines, but not peacetime beasts of burden. They must have earned a reputation from the Ancient Romans for their kicking, because a weapon with a powerful kick was named after them. Hundreds of years ago a weapon called the onager was created. It threw heavy objects a long distance using a powerful kick.

Physical Description-Adult
Onagers have thin looking legs compared to other wild equines. The onager′s back legs, hips, shoulders, top of the neck, back and most of its side are rusty brown. The belly, rear and the bottom of the neck are white. Look closely at the jaw-line, behind the nose, around the eye and hip-line and you′ll see white there too. Onagers have short, stiff black manes that stand upright. A dark stripe follows their backbone, continues down the top of the tail, and ends with a dark tuft of hair at the tail′s tip. The average adult height is 1.5 meters or 5 feet. Their weight is 250 kilograms or 551 pounds. Male and female height and weight are basically the same.

Physical Description-Foals
Young onagers foals are born with long fleecy coats. The pattern and color of their coats is similar to the adults. Onager foals nurse for one to one-and-a-half years. The foals can stand and follow their mothers, called Jennys, shortly after birth. Jennys and foals do not wander very far from each other for about two years.

Life Cycle
Jenny onagers become sexually mature at two years of age. Males reach sexually maturity between two and two years and two months. Stallions will fight each other to see which stallion will be allowed to mate with a receptive female. Onager mares can become pregnant within a 3 to 7 day period called estrus. Male onagers have a very interesting way to see if females are in estrus. They taste the female′s urine. This process is called flehmen, and it allows males to tell if a female is ready to mate. In nature, mares and stallions mate in June. Foals are born after a 368 day gestation period. This is longer than other equids of the same size. Since onager foals have such a long gestation they are born well developed. The Jenny leaves the herd before she gives birth to a single foal. Jennys are capable of giving birth every two years. Onagers can live for about 23 years.

Behavioral Description
Older more experienced female onagers lead onager herds. Within a herd there will be other females and their foals. The adult male onagers live away from the herd for most of the year. In the past when onager herds where bigger, males would sometimes stay with the herd. Onagers are active during the day, but they are most active in the late morning and early evenings when the temperatures are just right. This is when they will be most likely to look for food or visit a water source. They need to drink water every day in the hot summers, and will stay within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of a water source to be sure they are close enough.

Onagers breed well in captivity. That is good news for researchers and other scientists, but the problem is that they breed so well, they will even breed with other equids that are not onagers! When onagers are kept in captivity they are known to behave wild and seem restless. There are stories where onagers have searched fence lines for an opening so they could escape into another equid species′ field. This causes extra problems as the onagers will try to breed with them. Onagers are fairly smart, and will usually recognize the people who take care of them. They will even allow their caretakers to have their necks scratched. Onagers make noises that sound like loud squeaks. They use these calls to communicate with other onagers. Onagers have a very good sense of smell and eyesight.

Habitat Description
Onagers live in a desert area with little vegetation and very little water to drink. In some parts of the desert the temperatures may go up to 56 degrees Celsius (136 degrees Fahrenheit) during the day and down to 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) at night. It is important that desert is large enough that they can move to areas with plants and water when they run out.

Web of Life
Onagers are important in the food web. They will eat plants that other animals will ignore due to the poor quality. One of the things that enables them to eat such poor quality food is their special teeth. Onager teeth continue to grow to compensate for the wear caused by their rough food. People are often amazed to see them in areas with very few plants and where very few other animals live. Since they are often located in areas without other primary consumers secondary consumers (predators) depend on them. Wolves are the best-known animal predators of onagers, but people have hunted onagers for hundreds of years.

Onagers have several adaptations that help them survive predation by wolves and humans. They have a very good sense of smell and have eyes on the sides of their heads to see their enemies sneaking up on them. Onagers can run fast, and even after they get tired of running they can still trot for miles without having to stop. Before there were guns and automobiles, it was very hard to hunt onagers and people who were able to do it were considered great hunters. Many people considered onagers trophies to show off their hunting abilities.

Status in the Wild:
IUCN: Endangered
CITES: Appendix I
USFWS: Endangered

Population Estimates:
Turkmenistan: 5000
Israel 140
44 in 9 animal collections.

Historical Range
(Maps are aproximations)

Kazakhstan, Northern Iraq, Iran, Afghanastan, Pakastan and Northwestern India.

Modern Range

#1 Barsa-khelmes near the Aral Sea.
#2 Badkys Preserve in Turkmenia.
#3 Rann of Kutch National park in India.

Conservation Information
Dangers: If you thought of all the problems an endangered animal could have onagers have most of them. They where hunted for meat, skin, and just for sport. They live in areas where people waged wars. They′ve lost their habitat to people′s crops and live stock. The desert habitat they are living in is becoming even more dry and barren from the actions of man. Barsa-kelmes was once an island in the Aral sea, but since rivers have been diverted from the sea for crop irrigation the sea has shrunk in size so much Barsa-kelmes is no longer an island but part of the shore line.

Conservation Efforts:
The countries where onagers once lived in large numbers have set aside protected areas. This action by far is the most important conservation effort that has been undertaken. Scientists in these countries have studied onager behavior and habitat. They are trying to learn as much as they can about what onagers need to survive. In another effort, onagers are being caught and released into different areas to make sure there will always be onagers if something disastrous should happen in one of the protected areas in which they live. Zoos are helping by employing excellent animal management. They carefully match male and female onagers so that the captive population maintains genetic diversity and viability. In the future, captive onagers can be released in the wild herds. By doing so new blood lines will be introduced to the wild.