New Year of the Ox

Writer : Wang Dehua / http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-41757-1271797.html / Direct translation

 

The year of the rat is gone, and the year of the ox is here.

We are all familiar with the image and character of the cow. Such as Niu Jin means that a person has great energy; Niu Jin means that a person has a stubborn personality. The old scalper means that a person is conscientious and hardworking. To say that a person is terrible is bullish!

I grew up in the countryside, and when I was young I knew that cattle are important livestock in the countryside. The image of a yellow ox pulling a plow in the field is the image of an old ox in my mind. The shepherd boy is riding a flute on the back of an ox, which is the image of a buffalo seen in the New Year picture. Later, I had the opportunity to work in the Qinghai Plateau, and I met domestic yak, ate yak beef and beef jerky, and drank yak milk.

Bovids are the most diverse and economically valuable ungulate group. It is said that about 8000-10000 years ago, Asians began to domesticate bovids, and domesticated cattle and other domestic animals also spread all over the world with human activities. The ancestor of domestic cattle, which is widely bred all over the world, is Bos taurus. The ancestor of the southern buffalo in my country is the Asian wild buffalo (Bubalus arnee). The domestic yak (Bos grunniens) was domesticated by the wild yak (Bos mutus) about 10,000 years ago.

In zoology, cattle belong to Mammalia, Artiodactyla (now taxonomists tend to combine Artiodactyla and Artiodactyla according to molecular biology evidence), Bovidae. Bovids are generally larger, males have horns, and most females also have horns. For example, bison and yak belong to the bovine subfamily; takin, goose-throated antelope, Przewalski's gazelle, Tibetan gazelle, and yellow goat belong to the subfamily Antelope; ibex, rock goat, argali, goral, etc., belong to the subfamily Ovis (Note: some scholars will Bovid is divided into Bovinae and Antilopinae).

Most cloven-hoofed animals feed on the leaves of plants, which have low protein content and high cellulose content, and the secondary compounds in the leaves are toxic to animals. Cattle and other animals belong to ruminants. The stomachs of these animals are complex stomachs, including rumen, honeycomb stomach, double stomach and abomasum. Among them, only the abomasum is functionally similar to the stomachs of other mammals. There are glands on it. A symbiotic microbial community grows in the compound stomach. Ruminants mainly rely on the microbes in the stomach to decompose and digest the cellulose in the food to obtain the nutrients and energy they need.

This digestion method of ruminants is also called foregut fermentation, and its advantage is to increase the quantity and utilization of nutrients obtained from low-quality food. Having a complex stomach can enable ruminants to eat a large amount of food with low nutritional value in a relatively short period of time, and then ruminate in a relatively safe place and time to obtain energy and nutrition, which will help reduce the consumption of meat Risk of predation by animals. The process of ruminating also increases the residence time of food in the digestive tract, further improving digestion efficiency, for example, the residence time of food in the digestive tract of dairy cows can reach 70-100 hours.

Bovids are typical grassland-type species, and their tooth shape and limb structure are related to grass feeding and grassland sex life. The cheek teeth are high crown teeth, the upper canine teeth are degenerated or missing, and the side toes recede or disappear completely. The horns are not bifurcated, and are composed of ossified bone core and keratinized horn sheath. The horn center and the horn sheath do not change for life, and the angular shape has obvious interspecies differences, which can be used as an important feature for species identification.

Most large antelopes weighing more than 40kg have horns in both sexes, while females of small species below 25kg generally have no horns. When large species encounter natural enemies or fight with their companions, they mainly rely on corners for direct defense, while small species mainly avoid danger by running quickly or hiding in hiding.

Bovids are widely distributed worldwide, and research shows that many species originated in Asia. According to statistics, there are more than 200 kinds of bovine animals in the world. What kinds of cattle are there in our country? According to the "List of Chinese Mammal Species and Subspecies Classification and Distribution" written by Mr. Wang Yingxiang from Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2003, there are more than 20 bovids in my country, belonging to 4 subfamilies and 10 genera. Specifically:

Bovinae (Bovinae) animals 2 genera: Bison includes Indian bison, big-fronted buffalo, Javan bison, and wild yak; Buffalo has wild buffalo.

There are 3 genera of animals in the subfamily Antilopinae: Gazelle includes Tibetan gazelle, Przewalski's gazelle, and yellow goat; Gazelle has goose-throated antelope; Tibetan antelope includes Tibetan antelope and high-nosed antelope.

One genus of Ovibovinae: the takin of the genus Budorcas.

There are 5 genera of animals in the subfamily Caprinae: the genus Goral includes goral, red goral, hyena, and Taiwan antelope; Thar genus has Himalayan Tal goat; Ovis has ibex; Pseudosex has rock Sheep and dwarf rock sheep; argali has argali and so on.

Judging from the bovids distributed in my country, their distribution range is mainly in alpine and arid environments, as well as desert and semi-desert environments. For example, the Tibetan gazelle is distributed in the meadow grassland of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the Przewalski's gazelle is distributed in the transition zone between the desert and the plateau, and the wild yak is distributed in the alpine region of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Grasslands and deserts are characterized by lack of shelter and lack of water sources. Therefore, antelopes have a light body and the ability to run quickly in terms of ecological-morphological adaptation.

Obviously it is a bovine animal, but its name contains sheep. And some animals with cows in their names are not cows, such as the huge rhinoceros rhinoceros and the marine mammal manatee of the manatee family.

In fact, the "cattle" we usually refer to mainly refers to animals in the bovine subfamily, such as large-fronted cattle, wild yak, and wild buffalo (and cattle, buffalo, and yak). The wild yak is called "the boat of the plateau", mainly inhabits the 4000-6000 meters high and cold zone, and has a special physiological ability to tolerate hypoxia. Speaking of yaks, one naturally thinks of the yak ode (called the yak spirit by academia) by Mr. Xia Wuping, the founder of animal ecology in my country:

"Tolerate harsh conditions,

Nibbling on low grass,

Provides rich milk,

Serve as a ship on the plateau.

Not afraid of hardship, endure humiliation,

Do not count the rewards, but seek contributions.

 This kind of yak spirit is exactly what our scientists pursue. "