Cabrera, A. (1914): Fauna Ibérica. Mamiferos. Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales. Madrid.
p. 311
My translation of the Pyrenean Ibex account:
Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica Schinz.Capra ibex Asso (no Linné). Intrd. Oryctogr. et Zool. Arag. (1784), pg 59.
Capra pyrenaica Schinz. Neue Denkschr. Allg. Schweiz. Ges. Naturwiss., II (1838), pg. 9 pl I & II.
Ægoceros pyerenaicus Wagner (1845). Schreb. Säugth. Supplem., IV 1844, pg. 495.
Ibex Pyrenaicus Gervais (1855). Hist. Nat. Mamm., II. Pg. 188.
Capra pyrenaica typical Lydekker (1898). Wild Oxen, Shepp and Goats. Pg. 257.
Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica Cabrera (1911). Proceed. Zool. Soc. London. Pg. 965.Common names:
Cabra montés in spanish;
Íbice, Ibis in old Spanish;
Bucardo, Yerp in the Pyrenees.
Diagnosis.- Very big, rough horns with a well marked keel and twisted in the shape of a half spiral; coat greyish brown, with extensive black markings in the sides of the body and legs.
Characteristics.- Very short fur, composed exclusively by true hair in summer and in winter made of both, longer hair and short thick wool. In all seasons the hair longer above neck, forming a short, stiff mane. In the carpals there is a bare patch.
General colour pale greyish brown in summer, sometimes washed off white if the white hair root is visible. The nape, mane and a wide stripe along the spine (widening on the shoulders, often forming a diamond shaped patch) are black, with some whitish hairs intermingled. Also black are inner and outer forelegs; fore feet black all around above the hooves; the black also spreading upwards on the breast, fore neck and anterior part of the shoulders that, in the old bucks, come to meet the diamond black patch in the withers. Front of the rear feet also black as around the tibio-tarsal joint and up through the outer thight towards the hindquarters making a big black patch, often reaching the spine stripe. A broad black band starts in the thight along the low flank up to near the elbow [see image in my post in reply 12]. Belly, inner and rear sides of the legs white; Tail black. The head is brown, with the forehead and beard blackish and the outer part of the ears buff.
In winter general colour between grey and buff, washed blackish in the flanks; the black markings are not as well defined as in summer and all the lower neck becomes blackish or very dark brown.
The female, of a colour recalling a deer in summer, lacks the mane and the black stripes in the back and sides of the body.
The young of both sexes are similar in colour to the adult females in their first year, but the males in their third year already present the outer part of the forearms and of the tights blacks, as well as the spine stripe and the lower flanks.
Horns very big and thick, forming a gentle curve outwards and backwards, then again outwards and downwards and finally inwards and upwards, forming in a half spiral twist, so that the keel has an inner position in the base and a front-outer position in the horn tip; the transverse section is pear shaped, quite rounded apart from the two depressions that go with the front and rear of the keel which is perfectly well marked though not very protruding.
The entire horn surface, but the tip, is rough, forming many rings whose number grows with age and which correspond in the border of the keel with the same number of irregular undulations.
It is a widespread believing among our highlanders and hunters that each ring represent a year; but though it is true that the number of such rings is related to the growing of the horn and therefore the older the male, the bigger the number or rings, its correspondence to the age is nevertheless not as exact as previously supposed… In general it can be said that a buck is a perfect adult when it shows more than five rings in each horn and that it is an old male when the horn tips, after have been twisted inwards are clearly growing upwards.
The female horns are very short, lyre shaped and cylindrical, different from those of the young two or three year old males because they lack keel completely.
Measurements of an adult male from the Aragon Pyrenees: head and body 1480 mm; heigth at the withers, 750; tail, 130; ear, 126, rear foot, 440.
Skull: condyl base length, 260 mm; cygomatic width, 127; width at the orbital bones, 158; nasal bones, 90; mandibule, 217; upper molar series, 76; lower molar series, 80; length of the m
3, 20,5; length of the m
3, 27. Horns: length along the external rim, 800, base circumference, 200; distance between tips, 420.
The biggest set of horns known is that of an old buck from Valibierna Valley, whose head is preserved in the Musée de Bagnères at Luchon [France]; they measure 1020 mm and have 260 of base circumference. (See M. Gourdon, Bull. Soc. Scienc. Nat. Ouest de la France, VIII, 1908, pg. 5). When those really gigantic measurements are known, then it has to be admitted that the Count Gaston de Foix didn’t exaggerate when he said that the wild bucks from the Pyrenees «…
ne portent que leurs perches, les quelles sont grosses comme la jambe d’un homme [they only bring their poles that are as thick as a man’s thigh] » (Jacques de Fouilloux,
Vénerie, 1614, fol. 68).
The female is much smaller than the male and its horns are about one quarter of the male horns; those of an specimen from Ordesa Valley, propriety of Mr A. E. Leatham, measure 268 mm of length, 140 of circumference and 187 between horn tips.
Range.- Pyrenees of Aragon, Monte Perdido. Probably, no so long ago, it should have been spread over the whole Pyrenees as well as in the eastern part of the Cantabrian Range. In the Maladeta, where they seem to be completely extinct today, there were still some individuals six or seven years ago. Type Locality: Spanish Pyrenees.
Observations:
Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica that in the XVIth century was still abundant in both sides of the Pyrenees is, among all Iberian mammals, the one that seems condemned to disappear in the shortest term. A slow but continuous chase along many centuries has thrown them out from all those mountains where it used to be common two or three hundred years ago and tody there are only some individuals (eight or nine in 1907) left to shelter in the more far away valleys of the Monte Perdido.
When these goats where more common than nowadays, they used to be seen during the winter grazing in the valleys in snow free meadows, gathering in herds that sometimes got very close to small villages. Their descent from the great heights, where they lived in summer, clashed with the rut season that used to begin the first days of November. At that time, the males fought furiously and, being so braves, they were a danger to the domestic livestock and even, sometimes, to Man. They used to return to the heights at the beginning of April and, a little later, the females leaved the males and isolated themselves to give birth. The labour takes place in May; usually there is only one kid born, rarely twins.
Apart from the plates that appear in Schinz’s description, as expressed in the synonymia, plates that by the way leave a lot to be desired, the Pyrenean Ibex has been illustrated in the
Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères of F. Cuvier, Plate 396, 1833 (where neither at that plate nor in the text was given a scientific name to this species) where there is an excellent figure of young male in winter coat, and in Lydekker work
Wild Oxen, Sheep and Goats, where there is quite an acceptable plate, made by Wolf, even if in it the artistic effect seem to have been taken into account more than the scientific accuracy. Trutat also published in 1878 the photograph or male’s head (Bull. Soc. Hist. Nat. Toulouse, XI, 1877-78) and more recently, Gourdon did the same with an skull presented by him to the Nantes Museum (Gourdon, t.s.c., 1908, pl 1, fig. A).
