Badlands bighorn
| Badlands bighorn | |
|---|---|
| |
| Only known photo of a Badlands bighorn | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Family: | Bovidae |
| Subfamily: | Caprinae |
| Tribe: | Caprini |
| Genus: | Ovis |
| Species: | |
| Subspecies: | †O. c. auduboni
|
| Trinomial name | |
| †Ovis canadensis auduboni Merriam, 1901
| |
The Badlands bighorn (Ovis canadensis auduboni), commonly known as Audubon's bighorn sheep, is an extinct subspecies of bighorn sheep of the northern Great Plains in North America. Its existence as a separate subspecies is disputed.
Former distribution
While the one common name refers to the Badlands region of the Dakotas, it inhabited a larger range that included Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota.[1]
Some sources assert that the subspecies was hunted to extinction in the early 1900s.[2][3] Others claim that the subspecies persisted as long as 1926.[4]
Biologists Wehausen and Ramey assert that it was not a unique bighorn sheep subspecies but rather a variation of the widespread Rocky Mountain Bighorn (Ovis canadensis canadensis).[5] Some later studies do not support the existence of the Badlands Bighorn as a distinct subspecies.[6]
Rocky Mountain bighorn have replaced the subspecies/variation in its former habitats.[7]
See also
References
- ^ Shackleton, David M. (1997). Wild sheep and goats and their relatives : status survey and conservation action plan for caprinae. IUCN. ISBN 978-2-8317-0353-4.
- ^ Krist, John (2004). Voyage of rediscovery: exploring the New West in the footsteps of Lewis & Clark. New York: iUniverse, Inc. ISBN 978-0-595-33591-6.
- ^ Les Kaufman; Kenneth Mallory; New England Aquarium Corporation (1993). The Last Extinction. MIT Press. p. 121. ISBN 978-0-262-61089-6.
- ^ Stephen Trimble (1988). Words from the Land: Encounters with Natural History Writing. University of Nevada Press. p. 131. ISBN 978-0-87417-264-5.
- ^ Wehausen, John D.; Ramey, Rob Roy, II (2000). "Cranial Morphometric and Evolutionary Relationships in the Northern Range of Ovis Canadensis". J Mammal. 81 (1): 145–161. doi:10.1644/1545-1542(2000)081<0145:CMAERI>2.0.CO;2.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ French, Brett (2004). "The sheep that will not die". Montana Outdoors.
- ^ Wormell, J. Patrick Lewis (2003). Swan song : poems of extinction (1st ed.). Mankato, MN.: Creative Editions. ISBN 978-1-56846-175-5.
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