Muskox

The muskox (Ovibos moschatus, in Latin

"musky sheep-ox"), also spelled musk ox
and musk-ox (in Inuktitut: ᐅᒥᖕᒪᒃ,
umingmak; in Woods Cree: ᒫᖨᒨᐢ, mâthi-
môs, ᒫᖨᒧᐢᑐᐢ, mâthi-mostos), is an Arctic
hoofed mammal of the family Bovidae,[6]
noted for its thick coat and for the strong
odor emitted by males during the seasonal
rut, from which its name derives. This
musky odor has the effect of attracting
females during mating season. Its Inuktitut
name "umingmak" translates to "the
bearded one".[7] Its Woods Cree names
"mâthi-môs" and "mâthi-mostos" translate
to "ugly moose" and "ugly bison",
respectively.[8] Muskoxen primarily live in
Greenland and the Canadian Arctic of the
Northwest Territories and Nunavut,[9] with
reintroduced populations in the American
state of Alaska, the Canadian territory of
Yukon, Norway, and Siberia.
 Musk ox
Temporal range: 0.2–0 Ma
↓

PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K PN
g
Middle Pleistocene – Holocene

Muskox in the Lüneburg Heath wildlife park in

Germany

Conservation status

Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)[1]

Scientific classification

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla

Family: Bovidae

Subfamily: Caprinae

Genus: Ovibos
Blainville, 1816[2]

Species: O. moschatus

Binomial name

Ovibos moschatus
(Zimmermann, 1780)
 Range map: blue indicates areas where
muskox reintroduction has been attempted in
the 20th century; red indicates the previous
established range.
[5]
Synonyms

Generic:

Bosovis Kowarzik, 1911[3]

Specific:

Bos moschatus Zimmermann, 1780[4]

Bosovis moschatus (Zimmermann,
1780) Kowarzik, 1911

Evolution
Extant relatives …

As a member of the subfamily Caprinae of

the family Bovidae, the muskox is more
closely related to sheep and goats than to
oxen; it is placed in its own genus, Ovibos
(Latin: "sheep-ox"). It is one of the two
largest extant members of Caprinae, along
with the similarly sized takin.[10] While the
takin and muskox were once considered
possibly closely related, the takin lacks
common ovibovine features, such as the
muskox's specialized horn morphology,
and genetic analysis shows that their
lineages actually separated early in
caprine evolution. Instead, the muskox's
closest living relatives appear to be the
gorals of the genus Naemorhedus,
nowadays common in many countries of
central and east Asia. The vague similarity
between takin and muskox must therefore
be considered an example of convergent
evolution.[11]

Fossil history and extinct relatives …

Euceratherium skeleton (missing its ribs)

The modern muskox is the last member of
a line of ovibovines that first evolved in
temperate regions of Asia and adapted to
a cold tundra environment late in its
evolutionary history. Muskox ancestors
with sheep-like high-positioned horns
(horn cores being mostly over the plane of
the frontal bones, rather than below them
as in modern muskoxen) first left the
temperate forests for the developing
grasslands of Central Asia during the
Pliocene, expanding into Siberia and the
rest of northern Eurasia. Later migration
waves of Asian ungulates that included
high-horned muskoxen reached Europe
and North America during the first half of
the Pleistocene. The first well known
muskox, the "shrub-ox" Euceratherium,
crossed to North America over an early
version of the Bering Land Bridge two
million years ago and prospered in the
American southwest and Mexico.
Euceratherium was larger yet more lightly
built than modern muskoxen, resembling a
giant sheep with massive horns, and
preferred hilly grasslands.

A genus with intermediate horns,

Soergelia, inhabited Eurasia in the early
Pleistocene, from Spain to Siberia, and
crossed to North America during the
Irvingtonian (1.8 million years to 240,000
years ago), soon after Euceratherium.
Unlike Euceratherium, which survived in
America until the Pleistocene-Holocene
extinction event, Soergelia was a lowland
dweller that disappeared fairly early,
displaced by more advanced ungulates,
such as the "giant muskox" Praeovibos
(literally "before Ovibos"). The low-horned
Praeovibos was present in Europe and the
Mediterranean 1.5 million years ago,
colonized Alaska and the Yukon one
million years ago and disappeared half a
million years ago. Praeovibos was a highly
adaptable animal that appears associated
with cold tundra (reindeer) and temperate
woodland (red deer) faunas alike. During
the Mindel glaciation 500,000 years ago,
Praeovibos was present in the Kolyma river
area in eastern Siberia in association with
many Ice Age megafauna that would later
coexist with Ovibos, in the Kolyma itself
and elsewhere, including wild horses,
reindeer, woolly mammoth and stag-
moose. It is debated, however, if
Praeovibos was directly ancestral to
Ovibos, or both genera descended from a
common ancestor, since the two occurred
together during the middle Pleistocene.
Defenders of ancestry from Praeovibos
have proposed that Praeovibos evolved
into Ovibos in one region during a period of
isolation and expanded later, replacing the
remaining populations of Praeovibos.[11]

Bootherium skull

Two more Praeovibos-like genera were

named in America in the 19th century,
Bootherium and Symbos, which are now
identified as the male and female forms of
a single, sexually dimorphic species, the
"woodland muskox", Bootherium
bombifrons. Bootherium inhabited open
woodland areas of North America during
the late Pleistocene, from Alaska to Texas
and maybe even Mexico, but was most
common in the Southern United States,
while Ovibos replaced it in the tundra-
steppe to the north, immediately south of
the Laurentian ice sheet.[11][12]

Modern Ovibos appeared in Germany

almost one million years ago and was
common in the region through the
Pleistocene. By the Mindel, muskoxen had
also reached the British Isles. Both
Germany and Britain were just south of the
Scandinavian ice sheet and covered in
tundra during cold periods, but Pleistocene
muskoxen are also rarely recorded in more
benign and wooded areas to the south like
France and Green Spain, where they
coexisted with temperate ungulates like
red deer and aurochs. Likewise, the
muskox is known to have survived in
Britain during warm interglacial periods.[11]

Today's muskoxen are descended from

others believed to have migrated from
Siberia to North America between
200,000[13] and 90,000 years ago,[14]
having previously occupied Alaska (at the
time united to Siberia and isolated
periodically from the rest of North America
by the union of the Laurentide and
Cordilleran Ice Sheets during colder
periods) between 250,000 and 150,000
years ago. After migrating south during
one of the warmer periods of the Illinoian
glaciation, non-Alaskan American
muskoxen would be isolated from the rest
in the colder periods. The muskox was
already present in its current stronghold of
Banks Island 34,000 years ago, but the
existence of other ice-free areas in the
Canadian Arctic Archipelago at the time is
disputed.[11]

Along with the bison and the pronghorn,[15]

the muskox was one of a few species of
Pleistocene megafauna in North America
to survive the Pleistocene/Holocene
extinction event and live to the present
day.[16] The muskox is thought to have
been able to survive the last glacial period
by finding ice-free areas (refugia) away
from prehistoric peoples.[14]

Fossil DNA evidence suggests that

muskoxen were not only more
geographically widespread during the
Pleistocene, but also more genetically
diverse.[17] During that time, other
populations of muskoxen lived across the
Arctic, from the Ural Mountains to
Greenland. By contrast, the current genetic
makeup of the species is more
homogenous. Climate fluctuation may
have affected this shift in genetic diversity:
research indicates colder periods in Earth's
history are correlated with more diversity,
and warmer periods with more
homogeneity.[16]

Physical characteristics

This skull, in the collection of The Children's Museum

of Indianapolis, displays the muskox's large horns.
Both male and female muskoxen have
long, curved horns. Muskoxen stand 1.1 to
1.5 m (4 to 5 ft) high at the shoulder, with
females measuring 135 to 200 cm (4.4 to
6.6 ft) in length, and the larger males 200
to 250 cm (6.6 to 8.2 ft). The small tail,
often concealed under a layer of fur,
measures only 10 cm (3.9 in) long. Adults,
on average, weigh 285 kg (630 lb) and
range from 180 to 410 kg (400 to
900 lb).[10][18] The thick coat and large
head suggest a larger animal than the
muskox truly is; the bison, to which the
muskox is often compared, can weigh up
to twice as much.[19] However, heavy zoo-
kept specimens have weighed up to
650 kg (1,400 lb).[5] Their coat, a mix of
black, grey, and brown, includes long guard
hairs that almost reach the ground. Rare
"white muskoxen" have been spotted in the
Queen Maud Gulf Bird Sanctuary.[20]
Muskoxen are occasionally domesticated
for wool, meat, and milk.[21][22] The wool,
qiviut, is highly prized for its softness,
length, and insulation value. Prices for
yarn range between $40 and $80 per
ounce (28 g).[23][24][25]

A muskox can reach speeds of up to 60

km/h (37 mph).[26] Their life expectancy is
between 12 and 20 years.
Range

Fossil Ovibos moschatus skull from prehistoric

Siberia

Prehistory …

During the Pleistocene period, muskoxen

were much more widespread. Fossil
evidence shows that they lived across the
Siberian and North American Arctic, from
the Urals to Greenland.[16] The ancestors
of today's muskoxen came across the
Bering Land Bridge to North America
between 200,000[13] and 90,000 years
ago.[14] During the Wisconsinan, modern
muskox thrived in the tundra south of the
Laurentide Ice Sheet, in what is now the
Midwest, the Appalachians and Virginia,
while distant relatives Bootherium and
Euceratherium lived in the forests of the
Southern United States and the western
shrubland, respectively.[12] Though they
were always less common than other Ice
Age megafauna, muskox abundance
peaked during the Würm II glaciation
20,000 years ago and declined afterwards,
especially during the
Pleistocene/Holocene extinction event,
where its range was greatly reduced and
only the populations in North America
survived. The last known muskox
population in Europe died out in Sweden
9,000 years ago,[11] and the last one in
Asia, which lived on Siberia's Taymyr
Peninsula, about 2,000 years ago.[17]

After the disappearance of the Laurentide

Ice Sheet, the muskox gradually moved
north across the Canadian Arctic
Archipelago, arriving in Greenland from
Ellesmere Island at about 350 AD, during
the late Holocene. Their arrival in
northwestern Greenland probably occurred
within a few hundred years of the arrival of
the Dorset and Thule cultures in the
present-day Qaanaaq area. Human
predation around Qaanaaq may have
restricted muskoxen from moving down
the west coast, and instead kept them
confined to the northeastern fringes of the
island.[27]

Recent native range in North

America
…
Muskox at Cape Krusenstern National Monument,
Alaska

Muskox family in east Greenland

In modern times, muskoxen were

restricted to the Arctic areas of Northern
Canada, Greenland, and Alaska. The
Alaskan population was wiped out in the
late 19th or early 20th century. Their
depletion has been attributed to excessive
hunting, but an adverse change in climate
may have contributed.[28][29] However,
muskoxen have since been reintroduced to
Alaska. The United States Fish and Wildlife
Service introduced the muskox onto
Nunivak Island in 1935 as a means for
subsistence living.[30] Other reintroduced
populations are in Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge,[31] Bering Land Bridge National
Preserve, Yukon's Ivvavik National Park, a
wildlife conservation center in
Anchorage,[32] Aulavik National Park in
Northwest Territories, Kanuti National
Wildlife Refuge, Gates of the Arctic
National Park, and Whitehorse, Yukon's
wildlife preserve.[33]

There have been at least two

domestication endeavours. In the 1950s
an American researcher and adventurer
was able to capture muskox calves in
Northern Canada for relocation to a
property he prepared in Vermont.[34][35][36]
One condition imposed by the Canadian
government was he was not allowed to kill
adults defending their young. When nets
and ropes proved useless, he and his crew
herded family groups into open water
where calves were successfully separated
from the adults. Once airfreighted to
Montreal and trucked to Vermont, the
young animals habituated to the
temperate conditions. Although the calves
thrived and grew to adulthood, parasite
and disease resistance problems impaired
the overall success of the effort. The
surviving herd was eventually moved to a
farm in Palmer, Alaska, which has been
successful since the mid-1950s.[37]

Reintroductions in Eurasia …

This article may be expanded with text translated

from the corresponding article in Norwegian.
Learn more
The species was reintroduced from Banks
Island to the Dovre mountain range of
Norway in 1932 but were hunted to
extinction there during the Second World
War. It was reintroduced to Norway in
1947; this population expanded into
Härjedalen, Sweden, in 1971. It was
introduced in Svalbard in 1925–26 and
1929, but this population died out in the
1970s.[38] They were also introduced in
Iceland around 1930 but did not survive.[39]

In Russia, animals imported from Banks

and Nunivak were released in the Taymyr
Peninsula in 1974 and 1975, and some
from Nunivak were released in Wrangel
Island in 1975. Both locations are north of
the Arctic Circle. Today the population on
Wrangel Island is about 1100,[40] and that
on the Taymyr Peninsula is estimated at
11-14 thousand.[41] A few muskoxen herds
migrated from the Taymyr Peninsula far to
the south to the Putorana Plateau.[40] Once
established, these populations have been,
in turn, used as sources for further
reintroductions in Siberia between 1996
and 2010.[42] One of the last of these
actions was the release of six animals
within the "Pleistocene Park" project area
in the Kolyma River in 2010, where a team
of Russian scientists led by Sergey Zimov
aims to prove that muskoxen, along with
other Pleistocene megafauna that
survived into the early Holocene in
northern Siberia,[43] did not disappear from
the region due to climate change, but
because of human hunting.[44]

Introductions in eastern Canada …

Ancient muskox remains have never been

found in eastern Canada, despite the
ecological conditions in the northern
Labrador Peninsula being suitable for
them. In 1967, 14 animals were captured
near Eureka on Ellesmere Island by the
Institute for Northern Agricultural
Research (INAR), and brought to a farm in
Old Fort Chimo Kuujjuaq, northern Quebec,
for domestication to provide a local
cottage industry based on qiviut, one of
the world's finest natural fibers. Although
the animals thrived and the qiviut industry
showed early success with the training of
Inuit knitters and marketing, it soon
became clear that the Quebec government
had never intended that the muskoxen be
domestic, but had used INAR to capture
muskoxen to provide a wild population for
hunting. Government officials demanded
that INAR leave Quebec and the farm be
closed. Subsequently, 54 animals from the
farm were released in three places in
northern Quebec between 1973 and 1983,
and the remaining were ceded to local
zoos. Between 1983 and 1986, the
released animals increased from 148 to
290, at a rate of 25% per year, and by 2003,
an estimated 1400 muskoxen were in
Quebec. Additionally, 112 adults and 25
calves were counted in the nearby Diana
Island in 2005, having arrived there by their
own means from the continent. Vagrant
adults are sometimes spotted in Labrador,
though no herds have been observed in
the region.[45]

Ecology
During the summer, muskoxen live in wet
areas, such as river valleys, moving to
higher elevations in the winter to avoid
deep snow. Muskoxen will eat grasses,
arctic willows, woody plants, lichens, and
mosses. When food is abundant, they
prefer succulent and nutritious grasses in
an area. Willows are the most commonly
eaten plants in the winter. Muskoxen
require a high threshold of fat reserves in
order to conceive, which reflects their
conservative breeding strategy. Winter
ranges typically have shallow snow to
reduce the energy costs of digging through
snow to reach forage.[1] The primary
predators of muskoxen are arctic wolves,
which may account for up to half of all
mortality for the species. Other occasional
predators, likely mainly predators of calves
or infirm adults, can include grizzly bears
and polar bears.[5]

Social behavior and

reproduction

Nunivak Island, Alaskan muskoxen in the 1930s,

shown here in defensive formation
Muskoxen live in herds of 12–24 in the
winter and 8–20 in the summer.[46] They
do not hold territories, but they do mark
their trails with preorbital glands.[47] Male
and female muskoxen both have separate
age-based hierarchies, with mature oxen
being dominant over juveniles.[46]
Dominant oxen tend to get access to the
best resources[5] and will displace
subordinates from patches of grass during
the winter.[46] Muskox bulls assert their
dominance in many different ways. One is
a "rush and butt", in which a dominant bull
rushes a subordinate from the side with its
horns, and will warn the subordinate so it
can have a chance to get away.[48] Bulls
will also roar, swing their heads, and paw
the ground.[5] Dominant bulls sometimes
treat subordinate bulls like cows. A
dominant bull will casually kick a
subordinate with its foreleg, something
they do to cows during mating.[49]
Dominant bulls will also mock copulate
subordinates and sniff their genitals.[49] A
subordinate bull can change his status by
charging a dominant bull.[50]

Muskox in Dovrefjell-Sunndalsfjella National Park,

Norway
The mating (or "rutting") season of the
muskoxen begins in late June or early July.
During this time, dominant bulls will fight
others out of the herds and establish
harems of usually six or seven cows and
their offspring. Fighting bulls will first rub
their preorbital glands against their legs
while bellowing loudly, and then display
their horns.[50] The bulls then back up 20
meters, lower their heads, and charge into
each other, and will keep doing so until one
bull gives up.[48] Subordinate and elderly
bulls will leave the herds to form bachelor
groups or become solitary.[5] However,
when danger is present, the outside bulls
can return to the herd for protection.[51]
Dominant bulls will prevent cows from
leaving their harems.[5] During mating, a
bull will casually kick an estrous cow with
his foreleg to calm her down and make her
more receptive to his advances.[49] The
herds reassemble when summer ends.[51]

While the bulls are more aggressive during

the rutting season and make the decisions
in the groups, the females take charge
during gestation.[5] Pregnant females are
aggressive and decide what distance the
herd travels in a day and where they will
bed for the night.[52] The herds move more
frequently when cows are lactating, to
allow them to get enough food to nurse
their offspring.[52] Cows have an eight- to
nine-month gestation period, with calving
occurring from April to June. Cows do not
calve every year. When winters are severe,
cows will not go into estrus and thus not
calve the next year. When calving, cows
stay in the herd for protection. Muskox are
precocial, and calves are able to keep up
with the herd within just a few hours after
birth. The calves are welcomed into the
herd and nursed for the first two months.[5]
After that, a calf then begins eating
vegetation and nurses only occasionally.
Cows communicate with their calves
through braying. The calf's bond with its
mother weakens after two years.

Muskoxen have a distinctive defensive

behavior: when the herd is threatened, the
bulls and cows will face outward to form a
stationary ring or semicircle around the
calves.[53] The bulls are usually the front
line for defense against predators with the
cows and juveniles gathering close to
them.[5] Bulls determine the defensive
formation during rutting, while the cows
decide the rest of the year.[51]

Components of glandular
secretions
…
Muskox on Bolshoy Begichev Island, Russia

The preorbital gland secretion of

muskoxen has a "light, sweetish, ethereal"
odor.[7] Analysis of preorbital gland
secretion extract showed the presence of
cholesterol (which is nonvolatile),
benzaldehyde, a series of straight-chain
saturated gamma-lactones ranging from
C8H14O2 to C12H22O2 (with C10H18O2 being
most abundant), and probably the
monounsaturated gamma lactone
C12H20O2.[7] The saturated gamma-lactone
series has an odor similar to that of the
secretion.[7]

The odor of dominant rutting males is

"strong" and "rank".[7] It derives from the
preputial gland and is distributed over the
fur of the abdomen via urine. Analysis of
extract of washes of the prepuce revealed
the presence of benzoic acid and p-cresol,
along with a series of straight-chain
saturated hydrocarbons from C22H46 to
C32H66 (with C24H50 being most
abundant).[7]

Conservation status
Historically, this species declined because
of overhunting, but population recovery
has taken place following enforcement of
hunting regulations.[1] Management in the
late 1900s was mostly conservative
hunting quotas to foster recovery and
recolonization from the historic declines.[1]
The current world population of muskoxen
is estimated at between 80,000[54] and
125,000,[30] with an estimated 47,000
living on Banks Island.[55]

In Greenland there are no major threats,

although populations are often small in
size and scattered, which makes them
vulnerable to local fluctuations in climate.
Most populations are within national
parks, where they are protected from
hunting.[1] Muskoxen occur in four of
Greenland's protected areas, with
indigenous populations in Northeast
Greenland National Park, and three
introduced populations in Arnangarnup
Qoorua Nature Reserve, and
Kangerlussuaq and Maniitsoq Caribou
Reserves. Within these areas, muskoxen
receive full protection.[1]

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External links

Wikispecies has information related to

Muskox.

Wikimedia Commons has media

related to Ovibos moschatus.

Robert G. White Large Animal Research

Station at the University of Alaska
Fairbanks
Alex Trebek and John Teal's
Reintroduction of Muskox to Alaska
Jork Meyer, "Sex ratio in muskox skulls
(Ovibos moschatus) found at East
Greenland" (Geschlechterverhältnis bei
Schädeln des Moschusochsen (Ovibos
moschatus) in Ostgrönland) Beiträge
zur Jagd- und Wildtierforschung 29
(2004): 187–192.
"Musk-Ox"  . The New Student's
Reference Work  . 1914.
"Musk Ox"  . New International
Encyclopedia. 1905.
 "The Dovrefjell Musk Ox Trail" -
Dovrefjell Narional Park Board 2018
The Papers of Frank H. Atkinson at
Dartmouth College Library
The Papers of John J. Teal at
Dartmouth College Library
Burges Smith diary concerning Nunivak
Island Musk Ox Expedition at
Dartmouth College Library

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