Habitat:
Description:
Physical Traits:
Behaviors:
Instincts:
- Musk oxen live in the frozen Arctic
Description:
- Musk ox are large cattle-like mammals. They can grow to be 4-5 feet tall and weigh between 500-800 pounds.
Physical Traits:
- The Musk Ox is a huge hoofed mammal with a heavy bony plate across the forehead.
- The Musk Ox has the longest fur of any other animal.
- They have an insulated woolly undercoat and some of the hairs in the outer coat are almost 100 centimetres long. Their coats are thick and dark brown hair in color and hang almost to the ground.
- Musk Oxen have a stocky build and a pronounced shoulder hump.
- Muskox have a thick layer of body fat for insulation and food storage to help survive the winter when food supply may be scarce.
- Hooves insulate them from snow and ice. Hooves are made of keratin like fingernail and hair and so are a dead part of the body without any blood circulation to lose heat through. Musk oxen have two weight bearing toes which can spread the weight making for surer easier footing on soft or slippery surfaces. the hooves are also used to dig through the snow to reach food.
- Both the males and females have horns. Their horns can be used for protection.
- Their hooves spread out allowing the muskoxen to walk on snow without sinking too deep.
Behaviors:
- In winter, they use their hooves to dig through snow to graze on these plants
- Musk oxen are herd animals, and groups of two or three dozen animals are sometimes led by a single female.
- Herds use cooperation to deal with predation by wolves or dogs. When threatened, they “circle the wagons” and array themselves with their young in the middle and their sharp horns facing outward toward their foes.
- If they are in danger,they will charge and try to gore the enemy with their horns. The arctic wolf is their main enemy.
- Musk-oxen have a short migration range, moving from lowland areas in the summer to more elevated regions in the winter. This helps them avoid deep snow.
- Musk Ox are herbivores and graze on grasses, reeds, and other ground plants, digging through snow in the winter to reach their food. One of their favorite foods is willow. In the winter months, they turn to roots, dwarf willow and dwarf birch, lichens mosses and other vegetation they can access beneath the snow.
Instincts:
- Muskox are born knowing how to walk.
- Muskox are born knowing how to drink their mother's milk.
- Muskox will migrate to find food.