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Beautiful Mountain Alps: Wild Goats Fighting (Alpine Ibex) Taken with a Canon 600 mm telephoto with a tripod and 5D Mk III with ML. Ibex are wild goats that live in the mountainous regions of Europe, north central Asia and northern Africa. There are five species of ibex, according to the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS). They have long, curved horns and cloven hooves. Males have long beards. Ibex are related to antelopes, buffalo, bison, cattle, goats and sheep. Ibex are the most frequent wild bovids of the Alps and related to goats. Most eye-catching are their curved horns. Those of the males can grow up to 1m and weigh as much as 15 kg. Horns grow a lifetime but less with increasing age. An individual's age can be told from the annual rings visible on the back of the horns. Ibex have a compact body on sturdy legs. While males, called bucks, can reach a bodyweight from 80 kg up to 150 kg, goats hardly ever exceed 50 kg. Ibex are strong jumpers and sure-footed climbers. This enables them to move easily in their steep, inaccessible terrain. Living above tree limit, they have a very thick coat and are able to survive even with only sparse nutrition. Males join the female herds in late autumn for the rut season in December/January and depart in early spring. Male bachelor herds form during summer and have a distinct hierarchy, based on age, size and strength. Playful fights occur to clarify this ranking: Bucks rear up on their hind legs before crashing their horns together. During the rut most high-ranking bucks avoid each other, minimizing the number of serious conflicts. For more information on Alpine Ibex visit: Facts About Ibex: http://www.livescience.com/28102-ibex.html Alpine Ibex: http://www.waza.org/en/zoo/visit-the-zoo/sheep-goats-chamois-and-musk-ox-1254385523/capra-ibex-ibex Alpine Ibex defies gravity on Italian near-vertical dam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd8-xllm8uI Attribution: Christof Steirer - Steinböcke im Herbst 2013 Original video can be found at: https://vimeo.com/79206924 Attribution License - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/