One question that I get a lot at the zoo is “What is your favorite animal?” I never know how to answer that; there are just so many animals that are all so amazing and wonderful in their own right. But there is one animal at the zoo that attracts my attention most often: the musk ox.
The musk ox is a prehistoric animal that walked side by side with the wooly mammoth. There is nothing else like them left on the planet. When you compare them to their fossil remains, you’ll find they have not changed at all. To me, that is just fascinating.
By their name one might think they were related to oxen; in reality they have more in common with sheep and goats. One might also think they had a musk gland similar to a wolverine or fox; they don’t. In fact, one has to wonder how they got their name at all. Perhaps the person who first named them thought they were just a big smelly cow.
The first thing you see when you look at a musk ox is all that hair. They have a coarse outer coat, long and scraggly, that hangs down to the ground and provides a windbreak. Underneath that they have their inner coat – what I call their underwear and what the natives call qiviut (pronounced: Kee-vee-oot). This qiviut is amazing stuff: it is the warmest, softest hair I’ve ever felt, and is considered to be the rarest fiber on earth.
The second thing you see is their horns. Both males and females have them, but the horns on the males are larger and heavier. The base of their horns span the entire forehead, creating a “boss” – what I call their plate armor – that can be up to 4” thick. Their skull underneath the boss is up to 3” thick, giving them as much as 7” of protection.
They need this protection because their favorite pastime is head-butting! They will head-butt pretty much any one or any thing at any time. In the wild, this is their main defense against predators. In the face of danger, the herd will gather together and stand shoulder to shoulder with their heads facing outwards and with the younger ones behind them. No wolf or polar bear can hope to compete against that.
Males also use their boss as a way of determining who gets to mate with the ladies. They charge each other at top speeds from distances of up to 50 yards or more and collide squarely on the horn bosses. They do this over and over till only one is left standing. This ensures that only the only strongest males procreate, enhancing the breed’s ability to withstand the harsh conditions in which they live.
Oddly enough, the males have a much shorter lifespan than the females do.
If you’re lucky, the third thing you’ll notice about the musk ox is their voice. I swear on a stack of bible they sound just like a lion! I have had many zoo patrons ask me where the lions were kept, swearing that they heard the roar. Musk oxen aren’t the most talkative of animals, so you don’t get to hear them very often. But when they do decide to voice their opinion, it’s actually quite funny to see. They open their mouth and stick out their tongue and let out a surprisingly loud roar.
Their habit of standing shoulder to shoulder certainly protects them from their natural predators, but it does nothing against human hunter. In fact, it’s like shooting ducks in a bucket. One riffle can decimate an entire herd in minutes, and that’s exactly what happened back in the late 1800s. The entire Alaskan species was wiped out and is now extinct.
Thankfully, back around 1935 or so, somebody had the great idea of restocking Alaska. They brought in animals from both Greenland and Canada and reestablished a herd on Nunivak Island. Today, the musk ox can be seen in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Cape Thompson, the Seward Peninsula, Nelson Island, and Wrangel Island.
We have two musk oxen at The Alaska Zoo: Mekoryuk and Maxine. Both are of Greenland stock, being the shorter, stockier of the two bloodlines. Maxine was born 14 years ago at our very own zoo; Mekoryuk was born 6 years ago at the University of Alaska up in Fairbanks.
Maxine has had several babies, both by Mekoryuk and by Yukon – a Canadian musk ox who unfortunately passed away very unexpectedly a few years ago. The babies were all raised by their mother until they were about 2 years old. They were then were relocated to other zoos since we do not have room for more than two here in The Alaska Zoo. If you find yourself in the Tacoma/Seattle area, you can see one of her offspring at the Point Defiance Zoo!
They are unfortunately housed in a smallish enclosure, so we have gotten rather creative in trying to stimulate them and provide them with things to do. The Municipality of Anchorage donates to us their used brushes from the street sweepers – which make really good scratching posts. Musk oxen are the itchiest animals I’ve ever met, constantly scratching on any available surface. We propped up several of the brushes all around their enclosure, and they certainly get used.
Another form of amusement for them is their tire post. This is a metal pipe, about 10” in diameter and roughly 12 feet tall. Its buried 10’ under ground (making the total height more like 22 feet) and is encased in 3 feet of concrete. We placed a dozen used tires on the post, creating the perfect head-butting “tree” for them. A male musk ox can hit with the force equivalent to a car going about 20 miles an hour hitting a brick wall – so we needed to make it able to withstand the abuse. We did a pretty good job at it: it’s still standing, albeit at a slight angle now.
As a special treat, the official zoo photographer has provided a link to his website so you can see pictures of Maxine and Mekoryuk!
Check it out: http://johngomes.smugmug.com/ALASKA_ZO0_ANIMALS/189684
i'll keep an eye out for her offspring next time i go to PDZ.
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