Bovid

bovid, (family Bovidae), any hoofed mammal in the family Bovidae (order Artiodactyla), which includes the antelopes, sheep, goats, cattle, buffalo, and bison. What sets the Bovidae apart from other cud-chewing artiodactyls (notably deer, family Cervidae) is the presence of horns consisting of a sheath covering a bony core that grows from the skull’s frontal bones. Unlike the antlers of deer and the American pronghorn, bovid horns do not branch and are never shed. The males of all species and the females of about two-thirds of all species have horns—of every possible shape and size, from the short, straight spikes of duikers and dwarf antelopes to the huge scimitar-shaped horns of wild goats and the sable antelope and to the long corkscrew horns of the blackbuck, kudu, and markhor. There are 143 different species and 50 genera of Bovidae, including one completely new species placed in its own genus, the saola, discovered in the 1990s in the montane forests that divide Laos and Vietnam.