Qianjiang Evening News Hourly News Reporter Zhang Ran Correspondent Chen Jiuyue (Photo courtesy of Hangzhou Zoo)
Today (February 12) is the first day of the Year of the Ox, go to Hangzhou Zoo to see the cattle on the first day of the Chinese New Year, will there be a special Sense of New Year rituals?
When it comes to cattle, in addition to cattle, buffalo, yaks, which are the domestic animals that we are more familiar with, it seems difficult for ordinary people to think of any other bovine animals.
However, just like the mascot of the Spring Festival Gala is the colorful cow "Xiaoang", the variety and number of cattle in the animal world are beyond your imagination, although it is not called "colorful", it must be "colorful".
Today, follow the hourly news to listen to the experts of Hangzhou Zoo about the cattle in the zoo.
1] Do you know how large the bovine family is?
The number of bovine families is very large, with more than 50 genera and more than 140 species, which can be said to occupy half of the ungulates. However, there are so many bovine animals, why can't we find many animals with the word "cow" in our memory?
Because many bovine animals do not have "cows" in their Chinese names!
Among the more than 50 genera of bovines, only the animals of the four genera of buffalo, bovine, African buffalo and American bison are called xx cattle, and others are called xx antelope or xx sheep.
For example, the familiar goats, sheep, Chinese Tibetan antelope, African high-horned antelope, etc., which are familiar to everyone, all belong to the bovine family.
There is also a maverick wildebeest, which, although named like a horse, also belongs to the bovine family.
One of the common features of bovines is their horns.
(Horn of the horned antelope)
The horns of herbivores are mainly in the bovine family and the deer family (the horns of a few animals such as giraffes, forkhorns, rhinos, etc. are different from those of the bovine family and deer family).
(Horn of a sika deer)
The horns of bovines are called hole horns, which are hollow bony cores on the inside, sheathed with on the outside, and generally do not fork, while the horns of deer are solid, most of which are forked.
And the horns of bovines do not change for a lifetime, and growth is very slow in adulthood, and it is difficult to recover once accidentally broken. The horns of deer are replaced every year, which is a representative of "running out and losing".
2] The new Hangzhou antelope is also a "cow"
The bovine family that lives in the Hangzhou Zoo is the horned antelope native to Africa. Although their hometown is thousands of miles away, as the "New Hangzhou Antelope", their family is thriving in Hangzhou Zoo.
At the end of 2020, another little princess of the horned antelope was born.
This horned antelope baby is called Long Feng, and lives with her mother, Dragon Girl, and sister Xiaoman. Long Feng is dressed in plush light brown fur, with a pair of small horns on the top of his head, and his soft and cute appearance is particularly cute.
Long Feng is still a lively and clingy little girl. When following his mother and sister to the bend, he was often attracted by the grass on the ground and the flying insects and fell behind, and he turned around and trotted to catch up, and the little age had begun to show the style of big legs.
The small horns of the dragon and phoenix are still two straight, and they will gradually grow and become curved with age. By the age of one year, you can gradually see the curved arc.
When the dragon phoenix grows up, it will also have a pair of long horns that are as powerful as its parents, and the horns will slowly bend when they grow up.
By the horns of the horned antelope, it is also possible to roughly distinguish their age. Careful friends may find that the horns of the horned antelope are not smooth, and there are circles of lines on it, and it can be seen from the difference in the lines who is older.
(Young Horned Antelope)
The lines on the young horns are clearer, while the lines on the front of the older horns are much smoother.
(Older Horned Antelope)
The horns of the horned antelope are sharp weapons for fighting, they will play and wrestle with each other's horns against opponents, and often rub their horns on the trunk of trees. Over time, the front side of the horn was smoothed out.
The Horned Antelope family lives in an antelope bag house and is neighboring kangaroos and alpacas.
Go to the zoo on the first day of the Chinese New Year, don't forget to come and see the cute and loving little princess of the dragon and phoenix!
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Source: Qianjiang Evening News Hourly News