Ruminant fossils are extremely common in the Early Miocene deposits of the Northern Sperrgebiet, but they are not very diverse. Five species of pecorans and three of tragulids are now recorded from the various sites. Among the pecorans there are two primitive climacoceratids which lack cranial appendages, and there are three species of hornless bovoids, one of which is new. Pecoran taxa outnumber traguloids in the Namibian sites by 5:3, whereas in East African sites of similar age, the opposite is the case, with the ratio of pecorans to traguloids being 4:6. This difference reflects the more open, more arid palaeoenvironments of the Sperrgebiet compared to the more humid tropical Early Miocene palaeoenvironments of East Africa. As a guild, the Sperrgebiet ruminants show a greater propensity for a grazing component in their diet than do those from deposits of comparable age in East Africa, with fossils of folivores and omnivores present but scarce in the Sperrgebiet, but dominant and common in East Africa. In contrast, selenodont fossils, often with a light cementum cover are very common in the Sperrgebiet but in East Africa are much less common then traguloid fossils