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Takin — printable fact sheet
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Takin
Budorcas taxicolor
The takin (Budorcas taxicolor) is a heavy, ox-nosed goat-antelope of the eastern Himalayas and the mountains of western China, the national animal of Bhutan, and it looks like a committee assembled it from a musk ox, a wildebeest and a bison. It is in fact a caprine, in the same…
Did you know?
- The takin's appearance is so unusual that it is thought to have inspired the legend of the 'golden fleece' in Greek mythology.
- A takin's entire skin secretes an oily, pungent substance, so the whole animal is one enormous scent gland rather than having localised ones. Bhutan's national animal is explained by a legend in which a lama assembled it from the bones of a cow and a goat, which is oddly close to how it looks. Its outsized nose houses large sinuses believed to warm the freezing air of its high-altitude home. Despite the bulk, it is a caprine, more closely related to a domestic goat than to a bison or a musk ox.
What I learned
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