Stone sheep

The stone sheep is a subspecies of thinhorn sheep.^[1] Almost all stone sheep live in British Columbia in Canada.^[2][3][4][5]

Stone sheep
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Artiodactyla
Family:	Bovidae
Subfamily:	Caprinae
Genus:	Ovis
Species:	O. dalli stonei
Binomial name
Ovis dalli stonei

Appearance

Stone sheep in British Columbia.

This sheep is larger than its relative, the Dall sheep. The adult male stone sheep can weigh 180 to 220 lbs (82 to 100 kg). The adult female sheep are smaller. Unlike Dall sheep, stone sheep do not have bright white fur. Instead, they are gray, brown, or black. Lighter stone sheep are sometimes called Fannin sheep.^[1] Some scientists think Fannin sheep are a separate subspecies of thinhorn sheep and other scientists do not.^[2]

Stone sheep have horns with different shapes, but female stone sheep have thinner horns than male stone sheep.^[1] The horns are darker in color than the horns of Dall sheep.^[3]

The face, backs of the legs and the rear end usually have white fur on them. The tail is usually black with some black fur on the back.^[1]

Home

There are about 12,000 to 15,000 stone sheep in the world. Most of them live in British Columbia in Canada.^[3] They like to live on steep mountains. They move around. They go to low meadows to eat plants and then go back to high, rocky places where it is difficult for other animals to catch them.^[1]

History

Thinhorn sheep and snow sheep became two separate species around the time the last ice age ended, 10,000 to 18,000 years ago. After that, the thinhorn sheep moved east and spread out. The Dall sheep and stone sheep became separate subspecies some time after that.^[3]