Hi all, I am back from Yunnan, China, where I was looking for Dwarf Bharal. It is probably one of the least documented ungulates in the world. In fact, until yesterday you wouldn’t find a photo of a life animal in the internet at all. Now this gap is closed: My trip report and a chapter on the species is available here: http://www.wilddocu.de/dwarf-bharal-tour-china-yunnan-rini-mountain-2018/; http://www.wilddocu.de/dwarf-bharal-pseudois-schaeferi/
What is really cool is the feeding behaviour of the the Rini Mountain population: Only at this site the bharals have specialized on cacti and learned how to remove the spines with their horns.
Enjoy! Ralf
The feeding behavior is interesting because cacti have only been introduced to Eurasia in the 16th century, and made their way to Sichuan less than a hundred years ago.
Recent genetic data shows that dwarf blue sheep is genetically pretty much identical to common blue sheep of Sichuan subspecies. See Zeng et al. 2008 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18565767) and Tan et al. 2012 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22821360). IUCN no longer recognizes it as a separate species.
Thank you for the links, Vladimir. I will incorporate the new info asap.
But species / subspecies to and fro I am convinced the Dwarf Bharal deserves more attention – and especially from mammal watchers.
Fantastic Ralf!!!
Incredible tour!
First photos of the magnific Dwarf Bharal
Very nice shot!
We love watching wildlife.
We’ve just bought a new binoculars from this review
http://www.pirt.org/best-compact-binoculars/
Hope it make more clearer.
Thank you for sharing.