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Sheep (pl.: sheep) or domestic sheep (Ovis aries) are a domesticated, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Although the term sheep can apply to other species in the genus Ovis , in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated sheep.
Ovis is a genus of mammals, part of the Caprinae subfamily of the ruminant family Bovidae. [1] Its seven highly sociable species are known as sheep or ovines. Domestic sheep are members of the genus, and are thought to be descended from the wild mouflon of central and southwest Asia.
Sheep grazing on the south lawn of the White House, c. 1918. No ovine species native to the Americas has ever been domesticated, despite being closer genetically to domestic sheep than many Asian and European species. The first domestic sheep in North America—most likely of the Churra breed—arrived with Christopher Columbus' second voyage ...
Domestication is a gradual process, so there is no precise moment in the history of a given species when it can be considered to have become fully domesticated. Zooarchaeology has identified three classes of animal domesticates: Pets (dogs, cats, ferrets, hamsters, etc.) Livestock (cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, etc.)
Four breeds of sheep, in the illustrated encyclopedia Meyers Konversationslexikon. This is a list of breeds of domestic sheep.Domestic sheep (Ovis aries) are partially derived from mouflon (Ovis gmelini) stock, and have diverged sufficiently to be considered a different species.
Full wool Merino sheep Merino sheep and red goats. Madrid, Spain. The Merino is a breed or group of breeds of domestic sheep, characterised by very fine soft wool.It was established in Spain near the end of the Middle Ages, and was for several centuries kept as a strict Spanish monopoly; exports of the breed were not allowed, and those who tried risked capital punishment.
The ancestral sheep is presumed to have had 60 chromosomes, as in goats (Capra). Mouflon and domestic sheep have 54 chromosomes, with three pairs (1+3, 2+8, 5+11) of ancestral acrocentric chromosomes joined to form bi-armed chromosomes. This is in contrast to the argali and urial, which have 56 and 58 chromosomes respectively.
Bighorn sheep live in large herds and do not typically follow a single leader ram, unlike the mouflon, the ancestor of the domestic sheep, which has a strict dominance hierarchy. Before the mating season or " rut ", the rams attempt to establish a dominance hierarchy to determine access to ewes for mating.