Blue sheep
| Blue sheep | ||||||||||||
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Blue sheep ( Pseudois nayaur ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Pseudois nayaur | ||||||||||||
| ( Hodgson , 1833) |
The blue sheep ( Pseudois nayaur ), also called Bharal or Nahur , is a type of goat-like native to the Central Asian mountains . Despite its name, it does not belong to the sheep group , but is placed together with the dwarf blue sheep in its own genus (blue sheep, pseudois ), which is more closely related to the goats .
features
In appearance, blue sheep are more reminiscent of goats than sheep. They reach a head body length of 120 to 170 cm, to which a 10 to 20 cm long tail comes, and a shoulder height of 75 to 90 cm. Their weight is 35 to 80 kilograms, with the males becoming heavier than the females. The fur of these animals is gray, often with a bluish tinge; the belly and back of the legs are white, and the chest and front of the legs are colored black.
Both sexes have horns. In the males these are strong, round in cross-section and curved backwards; they reach a length of over 80 centimeters. Females have short, erect horns only eight inches long.
distribution and habitat
The blue sheep lives in the Himalaya region as well as in various mountain ranges of Tibet , Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia . The blue sheep can be found at great heights between 3000 and 5000 m, occasionally even up to 6500 m. Here they graze on alpine pastures. In case of danger, they flee to steep slopes, where they can find a secure hold, but where hardly a predator can follow them.
Way of life
The diet of the blue sheep consists of grass, herbs, moss and other vegetable material.
Females and young animals form herds of five to 18 animals, in rare cases larger groups are also possible. Outside the mating season, the bucks usually live alone or in bachelorette groups. During the mating season, the bucks become very aggressive towards their peers and try to gain control of a herd of females with sometimes violent fights.
Mating takes place between October and January, after a gestation period of around 160 days, usually a single young is born between May and July, and occasionally twins. The young are suckled for six months, puberty occurs at around one and a half years. In males, however, it usually takes until they are seven years old before they can reproduce for the first time. Life expectancy is 12 to 15 years, in human care up to 20 years. The predators of the blue sheep include the snow leopard , which inhabits the same habitat as the blue sheep.
Systematics
The blue sheep is a species from the genus of the blue sheep ( Pseudois ) within the tribe of the goat-like (Caprini) in the family of the horned (Bovidae). Two subspecies are sometimes assigned to the blue sheep:
- P. n. Nayaur Hodgson , 1833; Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, northern Pakistan, northern India and Tajikistan
- P. n. Szechuanensis Rothschild , 1922; western china
The distinction between the two subspecies is not generally recognized, so that the species is sometimes also considered monotypical . On the other hand, the dwarf blue sheep ( Pseudois schaeferi ) is sometimes seen as a subspecies of the blue sheep. Molecular genetic studies from 2017, which took into account over 220 individuals from almost the entire range of the species, were able to clearly separate the two subspecies from one another. P. n. Nayaur is limited to the Tibetan population , while P. n. Szechuanensis includes the animals of the Qilian Mountains in the Chinese provinces of Gansu and Qinghai and the Hengduan Mountains in Sichuan. In addition, two other, independent populations could be identified, one in the Helan Mountains in the Ningxia Autonomous Region and another in the Pamir . The Tibetan group separated from the rest of the lineage first, which happened in the Lower Pliocene 4.6 million years ago. The process is probably related to a phase of the unfolding of the Tibetan highlands. The last time the Helan population split was in the Upper Pliocene 3.6 million years ago. As a result of the analysis, the taxonomy of the species has to be revised.
Danger
In the 1960s there were over a million blue sheep; this number has fallen sharply as a result of hunting. Until 1989 they were hunted for their meat, which was also exported to Europe, then this practice was banned. Poaching remains a problem, however. Estimates of the total population vary considerably and range between 45,000 and 400,000. The IUCN lists the species as not endangered ( least concern ).
literature
- Ronald M. Nowak: Walker's Mammals of the World . Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-8018-5789-9 .
- Tej Kumar Shrestha: Wildlife of Nepal - A Study of Renewable Resources of Nepal Himalayas. Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu 2003, ISBN 99933-59-02-5 .
- Xiaoming Wang and Robert S. Hoffmann: Pseudois nayaur and Pseudois schaeferi. Mammalian Species 278, 1987, pp. 1-6
Individual evidence
- ↑ Tej Kumar Shrestha: Wildlife of Nepal - A Study of Renewable Resources of Nepal Himalayas. Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu 2003 p. 248
- ↑ Xiaoming Wang and Robert S. Hoffmann: Pseudois nayaur and Pseudois schaeferi. Mammlian Species 278, 1987, pp. 1-6
- ↑ Colin Groves and David M. Leslie Jr .: Family Bovidae (Hollow-horned Ruminants). In: Don E. Wilson and Russell A. Mittermeier (eds.): Handbook of the Mammals of the World. Volume 2: Hooved Mammals. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona 2011, ISBN 978-84-96553-77-4 , pp. 444-779 (pp. 716-717)
- ↑ Colin Groves and Peter Grubb: Ungulate Taxonomy. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011, pp. 1-317 (pp. 108-280)
- ↑ Shuai Tan, Zhihong Wang, Lichun Jiang, Rui Peng, Tao Zhang, Quekun Peng and Fangdong Zou: Molecular phylogeny and phylogeography of genus Pseudois (Bovidae, Cetartiodactyla): New insights into the contrasting phylogeographic structure. Ecology and Evolution. 2017, pp. 1–11 doi: 10.1002 / ece3.3269
Web links
- Photos, distribution map and further information
- Pseudois nayaur onthe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species . Retrieved July 22, 2009.