Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Artiodactyla > Bovidae > Ovis > Ovis aries

Ovis aries (sheep)

Synonyms: Ovis domestic; Ovis laristanica

Wikipedia Abstract

The sheep (Ovis aries) is a quadrupedal, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Although the name "sheep" applies to many species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to Ovis aries. Numbering a little over one billion, domestic sheep are also the most numerous species of sheep. An adult female sheep is referred to as a ewe (/juː/), an intact male as a ram or occasionally a tup, a castrated male as a wether, and a younger sheep as a lamb.
View Wikipedia Record: Ovis aries

Infraspecies

Ovis aries aries
Ovis aries arkal
Ovis aries cycloceros
Ovis aries isphahanica
Ovis aries laristanica
Ovis aries musimon
Ovis aries ophion
Ovis aries orientalis (mouflon) (Attributes)
Ovis aries vignei (urial) (Vulnerable) (Attributes)

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  242.51 lbs (110.00 kg)
Birth Weight [1]  5.238 lbs (2.376 kg)
Male Weight [1]  77.162 lbs (35.00 kg)
Diet [2]  Herbivore
Diet - Plants [2]  100 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  1 year 6 months
Male Maturity [1]  2 years 4 months
Gestation [1]  5 months 9 days
Litter Size [1]  1
Litters / Year [1]  1
Maximum Longevity [1]  23 years
Snout to Vent Length [1]  5.215 feet (159 cm)
Weaning [3]  6 months 2 days

Predators

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Linognathus africanus[4]
Linognathus ovillus (Sheep face louse)[4]
Linognathus pedalis (Sheep foot louse)[4]

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 3de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 4Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0