Bharal
The bharal (Pseudois nayaur), also called the blue sheep, is a caprine native to the high Himalayas. It is the only member of the genus Pseudois.[3] It occurs in India, Bhutan, China (in Gansu, Ningxia, Sichuan, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia), Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan.[1] The Helan Mountains of Ningxia have the highest concentration of bharal in the world, with 15 bharals per km2 and 30,000 in total.
Its native names include yanyang (岩羊) in Mandarin, bharal, barhal, bharar, and bharut in Hindi, na or sna in Tibetan and Ladakh, nabo in Spitian, naur in Nepali and na or gnao in Bhutan.[4]The bharal was also the focus of George Schaller and Peter Matthiessen's expedition to Nepal in 1973. Their personal experiences are well documented by Matthiessen in his book, The Snow Leopard. The bharal is a major prey of the snow leopard.
These medium-sized caprids are 115 to 165 cm (45 to 65 in) long along the head-and-body, with a tail of 10 to 20 cm (3.9 to 7.9 in). They stand 69 to 91 cm (27 to 36 in) high at the shoulder. Body mass can range from 35 to 75 kg (77 to 165 lb). Males are slightly larger than females. Dense coat is slate grey in colour, sometimes with a bluish sheen. The underparts and backs of the legs are white, while the chest and fronts of the legs are black. Separating the grey back and white belly is a charcoal-colored stripe. The ears are small, and the bridge of the nose is dark. The horns are found in both sexes and are ridged on the upper surface. In males, they grow upwards, then turn sideways and curve backward, looking somewhat like an upside-down mustache. They may grow to a length of 80 cm (31 in). In females,the horns are much shorter and straighter, growing up to 20 cm (7.9 in) long.[5][6]
The dwarf blue sheep or dwarf bharal (formerly described as Pseudois schaeferi), also known as rong-na in Tibetan, was an alleged species of Pseudois endemic to Sichuan-Tibet in China. It apparently inhabited low, arid, grassy slopes of the upper Yangtze gorge in Batang County of the Sichuan Province, and a small part of the Tibet Autonomous Region. It was recorded as differing from the bharal primarily in size, with adult males weighing around 35 kg (half as much as the bharal), less sexual dimorphism occurring in the species, and females of the two species being very similar. Its coat was described as a steely grey with a silvery sheen, with darker general colouration than the bharal, and the horns of the male were smaller, thinner and more upright, with no inward curl. There were only 200 individuals estimated to be alive in 2000, which prompted the IUCN (classifying it as a subspecies of P. nayaur, as P. n. schaeferi) classified it as Endangered.[7]
However, a 2012 genetic analysis of Chinese bharal found no indication that it was either a distinct species or subspecies, instead finding to be a morphologically distinct variant of P. n. szechuanensis. The American Society of Mammalogists also follows these results, considering P. schaeferi to be conspecific with P. nayaur.[3][7]
