Hej Klaus

Hvem har væltet den store sten ned i vandhullet? Den er jo våd endnu.

mvh Jens

Sten ?!? - Er det ikke en GED?

Geder har jo også horn, men har geder ikke mere hår?

Kan man sige noget om alderen på dyret - ud fra fældningsmønsteret som ses på indre øre-hår-dækkere.. ?

Af hensyn til det af 9s stille spørgsmåls store relevans internationalt, forfattes svaret og nogle funderinger angående bestemmelse i naturen af visse hovdyr m.m., på engelsk.

Concerning the ageing, the gap in ear-hairs, strongly indicates an individual more than one year old. However, if the animal have been kept in captivity, there is a slight chance that the ear-hairs have been cut, thus exact ageing other than 1. cal.year + is impossible.

In personal mails, there have been an indication that the animal in question (if not the smaller aves in the foreground) is a goat, but also that the animal could be an Indian One-horned Rhinoceros - hereafter just mentioned "Rhino". This animal only occurs in a few national parks, whereas goats mainly are observed near human habitation. However, there is always a risk, that an escaped goat ("scape-goat") could bewilder itself into a national park; Rhinos are, controversely, sometimes observed in agricultural landscape.

Whereas Rhinos normally are larger than goats, small-grown individuals might be the size of large-sized male goats. Here, the comparation with the bird could offer some clues, but unfortunetaly, there is a risk for size illusion in photoes.
Rhinos are grey, whereas most goats from Nepal are brown. However, many goat-variants exists, and there is a strong overlap in overall coluration, some goats being grey as Rhinos; also, if a Rhino has bathed in brown mud, it could look as brown as a goat. As the animal is grey, a goat cannot be fully excluded.
The horn on the nose indicates Rhino. However, certain diseases in Goats (as mentioned in Kruchenhauer et al. 2003: Nose diseases and abnormally cranical develpement in goats; J. Goat. Invest. 23:1111-1235, University of Kathmandu)may force development of horn-like protuberances. There have been found a statistical significant link between this disease - the "pseudo-horn" - and the abnormal hairing in ears. Thus, both animals could show traces of horns, and positive ID is hardly possibly here.

The best character is the line between upperlip and highest point of the skull,; <20% in Rhino, 5-18% in goats; theoretically, a goat with harelip ("hareskår") could disturb the validity of the character.
Unfortunately, this could not be judged from the photo, leaving the animal unidentifyed. DNA could have supported identificaton - there is >5% differences between Goat and Rhino.

LOL!

Many thanks to Klaus for this expertly executed summary of the many identification-pitfalls permeating this extremely complicated group.

Thank God I limited myself to birding!

Hehe... this is almost as good as the good old april first jokes here on netfugl.dk :-)

Thanks, Klaus!

I am however still not convinced, based on the photo, that it is not a stone. It is well-known that stones can have any size and shape and that the grey morph is common among stones. The hair-like protuberances on the to some degree ear-like part could very well be some kind of algae.

And as the famous Danish scientist Erasmus Montanus stated more than 200 hundred years ago: "A Stone cannot fly. A Goat or Rhino cannot fly. Hence, one cannot differentiate between Stone, Goat and Rhino!" Montanus, of course did not have access to modern techniques such as DNA sequencing, which could be helpful if it is possible to extract DNA from a stone.

jeg er vildt imponeret over at I overhovedet kan se indre øre-hår-dækkere på viben.
jeg vidste ikke engang at de overhovedet havde hår.
troede det var fjer det hele.


vh nh

Hvad er en vibe? Er det den havebassinsplastikstork foran stenen?