Kouprey
| Kouprey | |
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| The young male kouprey at the Vincennes Zoo, Paris 1937 that was designated the holotype of the species. The horns are not yet fully developed. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Family: | Bovidae |
| Subfamily: | Bovinae |
| Tribe: | Bovini |
| Genus: | Bos |
| Species: | B. sauveli |
| Binomial name | |
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Bos sauveli Urbain, 1937 |
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| Geographic range | |
| Synonyms | |
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Bibos sauveli (Urbain, 1937) |
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Bibos sauveli (Urbain, 1937)
Novibos sauveli (Coolidge, 1940)
A kouprey (Bos sauveli, from Khmer: គោព្រៃ, Khmer pronunciation: [koː prɨj], "wild ox"; also known as kouproh, "grey ox"), is a wild, forest-dwelling bovine species found mainly in northern Cambodia and believed to exist in southern Laos, western Vietnam, and eastern Thailand. A young male was sent to the Vincennes Zoo in 1937 where it was described by the French zoologist Achille Urbain and was declared the holotype. The kouprey has a tall, narrow body, long legs, a humped back and long horns.
Kouprey form small herds led by a female, and graze on grasses, feeding in the forest during the day and in the open at night. They are affected by degradation of their habitat and are hunted for their meat, horns and skull. There are not thought to be many kouprey in existence, and the last confirmed sighting was in 1988. Since then surveys have been done to try to locate the species, but all have failed. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated the species as "critically endangered", but it may already be extinct.
The kouprey is believed to be a close relative to the aurochs and the gaur. A very large ungulate, the kouprey can approach similar sizes to the wild Asian water buffalo. These bovids measure 2.1 to 2.3 m (6.9 to 7.5 ft) along the head and body, not counting a 1 m (3.3 ft) tail, and stand 1.7–1.9 m (5.6–6.2 ft) high at the shoulder. Their weight is reportedly from 680 to 910 kg (1,500 to 2,010 lb). Unverified reports of a body mass up to 1,700 kg (3,700 lb) from Vietnam are considered dubious, since they far exceed other recorded weights for the species.
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Wikipedia