Gaur — printable fact sheet

Did you know?

• Despite their bulk, gaurs are capable of running at surprising speeds and jumping tall obstacles when threatened.
• Alarmed gaur give a high whistling snort that carries a long way through forest and sets the whole herd moving — an odd, thin sound to come from an animal that size. In 2001 a gaur named Noah became the first endangered species to be cloned, gestated in a domestic cow, though the calf died within days of an unrelated infection. Herds contain no permanent bull; adult males are largely solitary and join herds only to breed, so the large animal you see alone in the forest is usually a bull. Gaur are dependent on undisturbed forest with clearings, and their decline tracks the fragmentation of Indian and Southeast Asian forest almost exactly.