In 1997 Colin Groves proposed that "Litocranius" is a sister taxon of the similarly long-necked dibatag ("Ammodorcas clarkei"), but withdrew from this in 2000. A 1999 phylogenetic study based on cytochrome b and cytochrome c oxidase subunit III analysis showed that the tribe Antilopini, to which the gerenuk belongs, is monophyletic. In 2013, Eva Verena Bärmann and colleagues (of the University of Cambridge) revised the phylogeny of tribe on the basis of nuclear and mitochondrial gene analysis. The cladogram prepared by them (given below) showed that the springbok ("Antidorcas marsupialis") forms a clade with the gerenuk; this clade is sister to the saiga ("Saiga tatarica", tribe Saigini) and the genera "Antilope" (blackbuck), "Eudorcas", "Gazella" and "Nanger" (of Antilopini).