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Ovis strepsiceros Linnaeus, 1758. Sheep ( pl.: sheep) or domestic sheep ( Ovis aries) are a domesticated, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Although the term sheep can apply to other species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated sheep.
- List of Sheep Breeds
Four breeds of sheep, in the illustrated encyclopedia Meyers...
- Ovis
Ovis aries. Linnaeus, 1758. Species. See text . Ovis is a...
- Suffolk Sheep
The Suffolk is a British breed of domestic sheep.It...
- Chris (Sheep)
Chris (July 2010 – 22 October 2019) was a Merino ram who...
- ORF
Humans. Orf is a zoonotic disease, meaning humans can...
- Feral Hogs
Two wild pigs near Kennedy Space Center, Florida. A feral...
- Domestic sheep
Domestic sheep. A domestic sheep ( Ovis aries) is a...
- Domestication of the sheep
The history of the domestic sheep goes back to between...
- Icelandic sheep
Icelandic sheep. The Icelandic [a] is the Icelandic breed of...
- List of Sheep Breeds
- Taxonomy and Genetics
- Description
- Natural History
- Relationship with Humans
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Ovis canadensis is one of two species of mountain sheep in North America; the other species being O. dalli, the Dall sheep. Wild sheep crossed the Bering land bridge from Siberia into Alaska during the Pleistocene (about 750,000 years ago); subsequently, they spread through western North America as far south as Baja California and northwestern main...
Bighorn sheep are named for the large, curved horns borne by the rams (males). Ewes (females) also have horns, but they are shorter and straighter. They range in color from light brown to grayish or dark, chocolate brown, with a white rump and lining on the backs of all four legs. Males typically weigh 58–143 kg (128–315 lb), are 90–105 cm (35–41 i...
Ecology
The Rocky Mountain and Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep occupy the cooler mountainous regions of Canada and the United States. In contrast, the desert bighorn sheep subspecies are indigenous to the hot desert ecosystems of the Southwestern United States and Mexico. Bighorn sheep inhabit alpine meadows, grassy mountain slopes, and foothill country near rugged, rocky cliffs and bluffs. Since bighorn sheep cannot move through deep snow, they prefer drier slopes, where the annual snowfall is less than...
Social structure and reproduction
Bighorn sheep live in large herds and do not typically follow a single leader ram, unlike the mouflon, the ancestor of the domestic sheep, which has a strict dominance hierarchy. Before the mating season or "rut", the rams attempt to establish a dominance hierarchy to determine access to ewes for mating. During the prerut period, most of the characteristic horn clashing occurs between rams, although this behavior may occur to a limited extent throughout the year. Bighorn sheep exhibit agonist...
Infectious disease
Many bighorn sheep populations in the United States experience regular outbreaks of infectious pneumonia, which likely result from the introduction of bacterial pathogens (in particular, Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae, and some strains of Mannheimia haemolytica) carried asymptomatically in domestic sheep. Once introduced, pathogens can transmit rapidly through a bighorn population, resulting in all-age die-offs that sometimes kill up to 90% of the population. In the years following pathogen introdu...
Conservation
Bighorn sheep were widespread throughout the western United States, Canada, and northern Mexico two hundred years ago. The population was estimated to be 150,000 to 200,000.Unregulated hunting, habitat destruction, overgrazing of rangelands, and diseases contracted from domestic livestock all contributed to the decline, the most drastic occurring from about 1870 through 1950. In 1936, the Arizona Boy Scouts mounted a statewide campaign to save the bighorn sheep. The scouts first became intere...
In culture
Bighorn sheep were among the most admired animals of the Apsaalooka (Crow) people, and what is today called the Bighorn Mountain Range was central to the Apsaalooka tribal lands. In the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area book, storyteller Old Coyote describes a legend related to the bighorn sheep. A man possessed by evil spirits attempts to kill his heir by pushing the young man over a cliff, but the victim is saved by getting caught in trees. Rescued by bighorn sheep, the man takes the...
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