#hemitragus

[snototter]

A group of Himalayan tahr (Hemitragus jemlahicus) near Cameron Glacier, Canterbury, Aotearoa.

by Jake Osborne

[inatungulates]

Himalayan tahr Hemitragus jemlahicus

Observed by adachao, CC BY-NC-ND

[wind-tied]

Himalayan tahr (Hemitragus jemlahicus)

[printondemandart]

The Thar Goat by Joseph Wolf Postcard

Animal Illustration: Designs & Collections on Zazzle

[podartists]

The Thar Goat (Capra jemlaica) | Joseph Wolf | Zoological sketches v.1 (1861) | Biodiversity Heritage Library | Flickr | Public domain

[internetdruid]

hello i just wanted to ask an ungulate enjoyer, what's your favourite goat?

Technically I could just answer this with the Takin again, but i will spare you and give you my second favorite goat:

the Himalayan Tahr (Hemitragus Jemlahicus)

but if you meant my favorite domestic goat that's a tie between Angora Goats & Kalahari Reds

[wendievergreen]

Miscellaneous Mammals (Goggaerker, Brotkarske, Shrobshong, Biklanokyo, Klosweisht, Kregichmon)

For this week, I drew the mammals with horns🤘 I don't have the energy or brain to explain my thought process rn, but the Bovidae (plus one Felidae) I referenced are listed under the cut!

Goggaerker: Arabian sand gazelle (Gazella marica), mouflon (Ovis gmelini)

Brotkarske: suni (Nesotragus moschatus), chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra)

Shrobshong: impala/rooibok (Aepyceros melampus), Himalayan tahr (Hemitragus jemlahicus)

Biklanokyo: saiga (Saiga tatarica), giant/Lord Derby's/greater eland (Taurotragus derbianus)

Klosweisht: blackbuck/Indian antelope (Antilope cervicapra), markhor (Capra falconeri), clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa)

Kregichmon: African forest/dwarf/Congo buffalo (Syncerus caffer nanus), black wildebeest/white-tailed gnu (Connochaetes gnou)

[tournevole]

Un jharal ou tahr de l'Himalaya (Hemitragus jemlahicus), contemple le vide avec sérénité - photo. : Ankit Singh Bisen

[markhors-menagerie]

Himalayan tahr (Hemitragus jemlahicus)

Another relative of goats, the tahr is found throughout the Himalayas. In winter, they grow a thick coat of fur and migrate further down the mountains to avoid heavy snow. Tahrs have been introduced to several other countries, and have become a destructive invasive species in New Zealand.

[cmipalaeo]

A muskox Ovibos is no more a goat than a mountain goat Oreamnos is. They're both members of the bovid tribe Caprini, which is sometimes referred to as the "goat-antelopes" because it includes the goats, sheep, and antelopes most similar to them. "Antelope" doesn't really have a taxonomic definition -- it basically just means "any bovid that isn't a species of cattle, goat, or sheep" (i.e., the familiar domesticated ones and their immediate wild relatives). Several species universally called antelopes, like kudus and elands, are evolutionarily closer to cattle than they are to other things called antelopes like gazelles and impalas.

If you are using the term "goat" to mean "any caprine" then both muskoxen and mountain goats are goats; this is probably how you end up with the solution "muskoxen are goats". If you are using it to mean "any member of the genus Capra" -- which is by far the most sensible definition for the term, as it includes the domestic goat and its immediate wild relatives -- then neither are goats. You could, hypothetically, use "goat" to mean "any caprine that isn't a sheep Ovis" but that doesn't really make sense because why should goats have preference over sheep? Even trying to restrict goat to mean "caprines phylogenetically closer to Capra than to Ovis" isn't especially useful because you end up with a lot of caprines that can't be called either (Himalayan tahrs Hemitragus, chamois Rupicapra, aoudads AKA Barbary sheep Ammotragus, bharals AKA blue sheep Pseudois, etc.)... and, for the record, all recent phylogenies of which I'm aware place both muskoxen and mountain goats outside the clade formed by Ovis + Capra, and under the definition of "goat" meaning "anything closer to Capra than to Ovis" neither are goats. So basically, there is no arrangement, taxonomic or terminological, to get a situation where mountain goats aren't true goats but muskoxen are.

For what it's worth, some recent phylogenies based on nuclear DNA find that the mountain goat and the muskox are each other's closest relatives, so there is that to think about, too, in terms of terminology... though admittedly this is not recovered in other trees (mitochondrial DNA, whole-genome, morphological, total evidence).

Ultimately, the best definition of "goat" is "member of the genus Capra", and we just have to acknowledge that the mountain goat is so-named because it appears goat-like, but in reality is no more a true goat than it is a sheep... and in fact is more distant from true goats than the true sheep are! The same goes for the muskox, just acknowledging that its name suggests its obvious (and ultimately superficial) similarities to cattle. Casually, using the term "goat" to mean "any caprine" gets the point of these animals' relationships across using a familiar species, but could lead to confusion like this.

I have just learned that Mountain Goats are NOT, in fact, actual Goats.

[terranlifeform]

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

Himalayan tahr (Hemitragus jemlahicus) ◇ photo by 彭建生

[inatungulates]

Himalayan tahr Hemitragus jemlahicus

Observed by fishingcatt, CC BY-NC-SA

[cypherdecypher]

Animal of the Day!

Himalayan Tahr (Hemitragus jemlahicus)

(Photo by Brigette E.)

Conservation Status- Near Threatened

Habitat- Himalayan Mountain Range

Size (Weight/Length)- 83.4 kg; 143.2 cm

Diet- Grasses; Leaves

Cool Facts- The Himalayan tahr is a close cousin to goats and sheep and it’s easy to see why. The male’s chest and neck are coated in long, dense hairs that protect them from the harsh winters and other males during the rut. Like most goats, the tahr is able to climb near vertical surfaces in the mountains they call home. During the rut, males will loose much of their body weight protecting their harem of females from other males. They have been introduced to several other places such as the United States, Argentina, and South Africa as a sport animal. However, they soon grew out of control and negatively affected their environment, leading to them being classified as an invasive species.

Rating- 11/10 (That’s a goat, not a lion.)

[newyorkthegoldenage]

John Updike: First Day of Spring

On the afternoon of the first day of spring, when the gutters were still heaped high with Monday’s snow but the sky itself was swept clean, we put on our galoshes and walked up the sunny side of Fifth Avenue to Central Park. There we saw: Great black rocks emerging from the melting drifts, their craggy  skins glistening like the backs of resurrected brontosaurs.

A pigeon on the half-frozen pond strutting to the edge of the ice

and looking a duck in the face.

A policeman getting his shoe wet testing the ice.

Three elderly relatives trying to coax a little boy to accompany  his father on a sled ride down a short but steep slope. After much  balking, the boy did, and, sure enough, the sled tipped over and  the father got his collar full of snow. Everybody laughed except the  boy, who sniffled.

Four boys in black leather jackets throwing snowballs at each other. (The snow was ideally soggy, and packed hard with one squeeze.)

Seven men without hats.

Twelve snowmen, none of them intact.

Two men listening to the radio in a car parked outside the Zoo;

Mel Allen was broadcasting the Yanks-Cardinals game from St. Petersburg.

A tahr (Hemitragus jemlaicus) pleasantly squinting in the sunlight.

An aoudad absently pawing the mud and chewing.

A yak with its back turned.

Empty cages labelled "Coati," "Orang-outang," "Ocelot."

A father saying to his little boy, who was annoyed almost to tears by the inactivity of the seals, "Father [Father Seal, we assumed] is very tired; he worked hard all day."

Most of the cafeterias out-of-doors tables occupied.

A pretty girl in black pants falling on them at the Wollman Memorial Rink.

"bill &. doris" carved on a tree, "rex & rita" written in the snow.

Two old men playing, and six supervising, a checkers game.

The Michael Friedsam Foundation Merry-Go-Round, nearly empty of children but overflowing with calliope music.

A man on a bench near the carrousel reading, through sunglasses, a book on economics.

Crews of shinglers repairing the roof of the Tavern-on-the-Green.

A woman dropping a camera she was trying to load, the film unrolling in the slush and exposing itself.

A little colored boy in aviator goggles rubbing his ears and saying, "He really hurt me." "No, he didn't," his nursemaid told him.

The green head of Giuseppe Mazzini staring across the white softball field, unblinking, though the sun was in its eyes.

Water murmuring down walks and rocks and steps. A grown man trying to block one rivulet with snow.

Things like brown sticks nosing through a plot of cleared soil.

A tire track in a piece of mud far removed from where any automobiles could be.

Footprints around a keep off sign.

Two pigeons feeding each other.

Two showgirls, whose faces had not yet thawed the frost of their makeup, treading indignantly through the slush.

A plump old man saying "Chick, chick" and feeding peanuts to squirrels.

Many solitary men throwing snowballs at tree trunks.

Many birds calling to each other about how little the Ramble has changed.

One red mitten lying lost under a poplar tree.

An airplane, very bright and distant, slowly moving through the branches of a sycamore.

—John Updike, Central Park, 1956

Photo: Spring in Central Park, 1956. Frank Paulin via Artsy

[podartists]

Hemitragus jemlahicus | Joseph Wolf (1820-1899)