Alpine ibex

 

The Life of Animals | Alpine ibex | The ibex was, at one point, only the National Park of Gran Paradiso limited in northern Italy, but has in recent years occupied most of the European Alps again, and is found in Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia, currently there are no recognized subspecies. Capricorns tend to avoid large areas of forest, however, in areas with high population density, adult males using larch larch and spruce mixed forest most of the year. Males and females tend to use different habitats, most of the year. The females are more dependent than the steep terrain of low-elevation meadows males.Males use in the spring when the snow melt and green grass appears.

Home ranges generally larger in summer and autumn, in spring and smallest in winter are smaller female territories are generally smaller than men's. Alpine ibex are strict herbivores, which is about half of their diet of grasses, and the rest is a mixture of moss, flowers, leaves and twigs. Grass species that are most often eaten Agrostis, Avena, Calamagrostis, Festuca, Phleum, Poa, and Sesleria Trisetum. The Alpine ibex will hide in the rocks of the steep cliffs, when they pursued the robbers from climbing ability of Capricorn, that he was seen standing on the sheer face of a dam, where he licks the stones to get in mineral salts

Although the Alpine Ibex is gregarious, there are sexual and spatial segregation, depending on the season. Four types of groups are present. Adult male groups, groups of females and their dependent offsping made, groups of young individuals of 2-3 years of age and mixed sex groups. Mixed sex groups of adult men and women occur during the breeding season lasts from December to January. The largest concentrations of both sexes occur in late spring and summer, in June and July. The males aggregate then separate from their wintering areas. There is a linear hierarchy exists among males. In small populations, male ibex know their place in the hierarchy of memories of past encounters into coherent social units, while in the mobile and large groups, which are common encounters with strangers, based on rank-based Horn length.Ibex males, showed two types of antagonistic behavior: direct and indirect aggression.

In the first phase of the male groups interact with the females, all in estrus. The males approach the females in a small stretch and stand at a distance proportional to their social rank. In the second phase of the rut, a man will be resolved by this group and follow an individual female. He leads the low elongation and every male that threaten approaches. The males will then mate with the females and then to join his group, and again in the first phase. The gestation period lasts about 167 days, and the results in the birth of one or two children, twins making up about 20% of births Alpine ibex reach sexual maturity at 18 months, but the females do not reach their maximum size for five to six years, and not men for nine or eleven years. In the 19th Century became extinct mountain goats in Austria and northeastern Italy. They stayed only in the area of the Gran Paradiso massif in the western Italian Alps. The ibex were protected from poaching and their population grew to about 3020 to 1914. In 1922, Gran Paradiso was made into a national park to protect the ibex.