The pygarg (/ˈpaɪɡɑːɡ/[1]) is an animal mentioned in the Bible in Deuteronomy 14:5 as one of the animals permitted for food. The Septuagint translates the Hebrew yachmur (יחמור) as pygargos in Koiné Greek ("white-rumped", from pyge "buttocks" and argo "white"),[1] and the King James Version takes from there its term pygarg.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Addax_nasomaculatus_Zoo_Praha_2011-1.jpg/220px-Addax_nasomaculatus_Zoo_Praha_2011-1.jpg)
Henry Baker Tristram (1867) proposed that the pygarg was the Saharan antelope addax and described it as "a large animal, over 3+1⁄2 feet [1 m] high at the shoulder, and, with its gently-twisted horns, 2+1⁄2 feet [80 cm] feet long. Its colour is pure white, with the exception of a short black mane, and a tinge of tawny on the shoulders and back".[2]
Outside the biblical use, the term was also applied to the Siberian roe deer in the 18th century,[3] whose specific name is pygargus in scientific Latin. This deer, like other roe deer, has a white rump. Accordingly, this application is consistent with the Septuagint translation while the addax is not since it is all-white (rather than just having a white rump).
References
edit- ^ a b "pygarg". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- ^ Henry Baker Tristram, The Natural History of the Bible (1867).
- ^ Pallas, P.S. (1793). Voyages du professeur Pallas, dans plusieurs provinces de l'Empire de Russie et dans l'Asie septentrionale (in Latin and French). p. 25.
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Easton, Matthew George (1897). "Pygarg". Easton's Bible Dictionary (New and revised ed.). T. Nelson and Sons.