Musk Ox

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Musk Ox

The muskox (Ovibos moschatus) is an Arctic

Arctic

The Arctic is the region around the Earth's North Pole, opposite the Antarctica region around the South Pole. The Arctic includes the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Greenland , Russia, the United States , Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland....
mammal

Mammal

Mammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose name is derived from their distinctive feature, mammary glands, with which they feed their young....
of the Bovid

Bovid

A bovid is any of almost 140 species of cloven-hoofed mammals belonging to the family Bovidae. The family is widespread, being native to all continents except South America, Australia and Antarctica, and diverse: members include domestic cattle, bison, water buffalo, antelopes, gazelles, sheep, goats and the muskox....
ae family, noted for its thick coat and for the strong odor emitted by males, from which its name derives. This musky odor

Musk

Musk is the name originally given to a substance with a penetrating odor obtained from a gland of the male musk deer, which is situated between its stomach and genitals....
is used to attract females during mating season.

embers of the subfamily Caprinae of the family Bovidae, muskoxen are more closely related to sheep

Domestic sheep

Domestic sheep are quadrupedal, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates....
and goat

Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep: both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae....
s than to ox

Oxen are bovinae trained as draught animals. Often they are adult, castration males. Oxen are used for ploughing, transport, hauling cargo, threshing grain by trampling, powering machines for grinding grain, irrigation or other purposes, and drawing carts and wagons....
en, but are in their own genus, Ovibos.

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Encyclopedia

The muskox (Ovibos moschatus) is an Arctic

Arctic

Mammal

Mammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose name is derived from their distinctive feature, mammary glands, with which they feed their young....
of the Bovid

Bovid

Musk

Physical characteristics

As members of the subfamily Caprinae of the family Bovidae, muskoxen are more closely related to sheep

Domestic sheep

Domestic sheep are quadrupedal, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates....
and goat

Goat

Horn (anatomy)

A horn is a pointed projection of the skin on the head of various mammals, consisting of a covering of horn surrounding a core of living bone....
s. Muskoxen are usually around long and high at the shoulder. Adults, on average, weigh and range from . The thick coat and large head often suggests a larger animal than the muskox truly is, but overfed zoo specimens have weighed up to 650 kg (1430 lbs). Their coat, a mix of black, gray, and brown, includes long guard hair

Guard hair

Guard hairs are the longest, most coarse hairs in a mammal's coat, forming the topcoat . They taper to a point and protect the undercoat from the elements....
s that reach almost to the ground. Rare "white muskox" have been spotted in the Queen Maud Gulf Bird Sanctuary

Queen Maud Gulf Bird Sanctuary

Queen Maud Gulf Bird Sanctuary is Canada largest federally owned protected area. encompassing some of the Arctic Circle coastline. is Marine , and are terrestrial....
. Muskox wool

Wool

Wool is the fiber derived from the specialized skin cells, called follicles, of animals in the Caprinae family, principally domestic sheep, but the hair of certain species of other Mammalia such as cashmere goat, llamas, rabbits and keeshonds may also be called wool....
, or qiviut

Qiviut

Qiviut is an Inuit word commonly used to indicate the wool of the muskox. The word was originally used to refer to the down feathers of birds as well as the inner wool of the muskox....
(an Inuit

Inuit

Inuit is a general term for a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada, Greenland, Russia and Alaska, United States....
word), is highly prized for its softness, length, and insulative value. Prices for yarn range between $40 and $80 per ounce (28 g).

Muskoxen are social and live in herd

Herd

A herd is a large group of animals. The term is usually applied to mammals, particularly ungulates. Other terms are used for similar phenomena in other types of animal....
s, usually of around 10–20 animals, but sometimes over 70. Winter herds consist of adults of both sexes as well as young animals. During the mating season

Estrous cycle

The oestrous cycle comprises the recurring physiology changes that are induced by sexual reproduction hormones in most mammalian placental females....
, which peaks in mid-August, males compete for dominance, and one dominant bull drives other adult males out of the group. Non-breeding males will often form male only herds of 3-10 or wander the tundra alone. During this period all males are extremely aggressive. Bulls will even charge birds if they are close by.

Females are sexually mature at two years of age, and males reach sexual maturity after five years. The gestation

Gestation

Gestation is the carrying of an embryo or fetus inside a female viviparous animal. Mammals during mammalian pregnancy can have one or more gestations at the same time ....
period is eight or nine months. Almost all pregnancies yield single calves. The young nurse for a year, but may start to eat grasses as soon as a week after birth.

Muskoxen have a distinctive defensive behavior: when the herd is threatened, the bulls and cows will face outward to form a stationary ring around the calves. This is an effective defense against predator

Predation

In ecology, predation describes a biological interaction where a predator feeds on its prey, the organism that is attacked. Predators may or may not kill their prey prior to feeding on them, but the act of predation always results in the death of the prey....
s such as wolves

Gray Wolf

The grey wolf or gray wolf , also known as the timber wolf or simply wolf, is the largest wild member of the Canidae family. It is an ice age survivor originating during the Late Pleistocene around 300,000 years ago....
, but makes them an easy target for human hunters. Besides wolves, the only natural predators of muskoxen are Brown

Brown Bear

The Brown Bear is a large bear distributed across much of northern Eurasia and North America. It weighs 100 to 700 kg and its larger populations such as the Kodiak bear match the Polar bear as the largest extant land predator....
, Grizzly

Grizzly Bear

The grizzly bear ', also known as the silvertip bear, is a subspecies of brown bear ' that lives in the uplands of western North America....
and Polar bear

Polar Bear

The polar bear is a bear native to the Arctic Ocean and its surrounding seas. The world's largest carnivore found on land, and shares the title of largest land predator with the Kodiak Bear, an adult male weighs around , while an adult female is about half that size....
s.

The muskox, or its ancestor, is believed to have migrated to North America

North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
between 200,000 and 90,000 years ago. It is agreed however that the muskox was alive in the Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 1.8 million to 10,000 years Before Present covering the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
period making it a contemporary of the Mammoth

Mammoth

A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus. These proboscideans are members of the Elephantidae and close relatives of modern elephants....
. It is thought that the muskox was able to survive the last ice age

Ice age

The general term "ice age" or, more precisely, "glacial age" denotes a geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in an expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers....
(Wisconsin glaciation) by finding ice free areas away from prehistoric peoples. The muskox gradually moved across North America and arrived in Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is a member country of the Kingdom of Denmark located between the Arctic Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago....
during the late Holocene

Holocene

The Holocene is a geological Epoch which began approximately 11,700 years ago . According to traditional geological thinking, the Holocene continues to the present....
.

Habitat and range

Muskoxen are native to the Arctic areas of Canada

Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
, Greenland, and Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest U.S. state of the United States by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait....
. The Alaska population was wiped out in the late 19th or early 20th century, but muskoxen have since been reintroduced

Reintroduction

Reintroduction is the deliberate release of species into the wild, from captive breeding or relocated from other areas where the species survives....
to Alaska. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service

United States Fish and Wildlife Service

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is the unit of the U.S. Department of the Interior dedicated to the management and preservation of wildlife....
introduced muskox onto the Nunivak Island

Nunivak Island

Nunivak Island, the second largest island in the Bering Sea, is a permafrost-covered volcanic island lying about 48 km offshore from the delta of the Yukon River and Kuskokwim River rivers in the state of Alaska, at about 60? North latitude....
in 1935 as a means for sustenance

Hunter-gatherer

A hunter-gatherer society is one whose primary List of subsistence techniques involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild, foraging and hunting without significant recourse to the domestication of either....
living. The species has also been reintroduced from Banks Island

Banks Island

One of the larger members of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Banks Island is situated in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada....
to northern Europe

Northern Europe

Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. The United Nations defines Northern Europe as including the following countries and dependent regions:...
, including Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....
, Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Finland across the Gulf of Finland, to the west by Sweden across the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by the Russia ....
, the Dovre region

Dovre region

The Dovre region is a districts of Norway consisting of the municipalities of Norway of Dovre, Folldal, and Oppdal.This region is atypical in several respects: while most districts in Norway are bounded by geographical barriers such as fjords and mountain ranges, the Dovre region comprises alpine communities that straddle the mountain range...
of Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula....
, and Russia

Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
and from Ellesmere Island

Ellesmere Island

Ellesmere Island is part of the Qikiqtaaluk Region of the Canada territory of Nunavut. Lying within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago it is considered part of the Queen Elizabeth Islands, with Cape Columbia being the most northerly point of land in Canada....
to Eastern Canada

Eastern Canada

Eastern Canada is generally considered to be the region of Canada east of Manitoba, consisting of the following provinces and territories of Canada:...
. In the province of Quebec

Quebec

Quebec , in French language, Qu?bec , is a Provinces and territories of Canada in the Central Canada and Eastern Canada regions of Canada....
, muskoxen were close to extinction at one point, but have recovered after being protected from hunting. The world population is estimated at between 80,000 and 125,000, with an estimated 68,788 living on Banks Island

Banks Island

One of the larger members of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Banks Island is situated in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada....
.

During the summer, muskoxen live in wet areas, such as river valleys, moving to higher elevations in the winter to avoid deep snow. They graze

Grazing

Grazing generally describes a type of predation in which a herbivore feeds on plants , or more broadly on a multicellular autotrophs . Grazing differs from true predation because the organism being eaten is not death, and it differs from parasitism as the two organisms do not symbiosis, nor is the grazer necessarily so limited in what it can...
on grass

Grass

Grass is the common word that generally describes monocotyledonous green plants. The family Poaceae are the "true grasses" and include most plants grown as grains, for pasture, and for lawns ....
es, reeds

Reed (plant)

Reed is a generic botanical term used to describe numerous tall, grass-like plants of wet places, often forming reed beds, including:In the Poaceae family:...
, sedge

Cyperaceae

The family Cyperaceae, or the sedges, is a taxon of monocotyledon flowering plants that superficially resemble Poaceae or Juncaceae. The family is large, with some 4,000 species described in about 70 genera....
s, and other ground plants, digging through snow in the winter to reach their food.

The last known muskox population outside North America lived on the Taymyr Peninsula

Taymyr Peninsula

Taymyr Peninsula is a peninsula in Siberia that forms the most northern part of mainland Asia. It lies between the Yenisei Gulf of the Kara Sea and the Khatanga Gulf of the Laptev Sea in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia....
of Siberia

Siberia

Siberia , is the name given to the vast region constituting almost all of North Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, having served in the same capacity previously for the Soviet Union from its beginning, and the Russian Empire beginning in the 16th century....
, and died out about 2,000 years ago.

External links

at the University of Alaska Fairbanks
University of Alaska Fairbanks

The University of Alaska Fairbanks, located in Fairbanks, Alaska, USA, is the flagship campus of the University of Alaska System, and is abbreviated as Alaska or UAF....
Beiträge zur Jagd- und Wildtierforschung 29 (2004): 187-192.
The New Student's Reference Work/Musk-Ox