The Himalayan serow (''Capricornis sumatraensis thar''), also known as the thar ( , ), is a subspecies of the mainland serow native to the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya ( ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than list of h ...

. It was previously considered its own species, as ''Capricornis thar''. It is the official state animal of the

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

n state of

Mizoram Mizoram is a states and union territories of India, state in northeastern India, with Aizawl as its Capital city, capital and largest city. It shares 722-kilometres (449 miles) of international borders with Bangladesh to the west, and Myanmar t ...

Taxonomy

In 1831,

Brian Houghton Hodgson Brian Houghton Hodgson (1 February 1801 – 23 May 1894) was a pioneer natural history, naturalist and ethnologist working in India and Nepal where he was a British Resident (title), Resident. He described numerous species of birds and mammals fr ...

first described a goat-like animal with short annulated horns occurring in montane regions between the

Sutlej The Sutlej River or the Satluj River is a major river in Asia, flowing through China, India and Pakistan, and is the longest of the five major rivers of the Punjab region. It is also known as ''Satadru''; and is the easternmost tributary of t ...

and

Teesta River Teesta River is a long river that rises in the Pauhunri Mountain of eastern Himalayas, flows through the Indian states of Sikkim and West Bengal and subsequently enters Bangladesh through Rangpur division. In Bangladesh, it merges with Jamu ...

s under the name "Bubaline Antelope". As "Bubaline" was preoccupied, he gave it the

scientific name In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...

''Antelope thar'' a few months later. When

William Ogilby William Ogilby (1805 – 1 September 1873) was an Irish-born zoologist who was at the forefront of classification and naming of animal species in the 1830s and served as Secretary of the Zoological Society of London from 1839 to 1847. He removed ...

described the genus '' Capricornis'' in 1838, he determined the Himalayan serow as

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

of this genus.

Description

The Himalayan serow is mostly blackish, with flanks, hindquarters, and upper legs that are a rusty red; its lower legs are whitish.

Distribution and habitat

The Himalayan serow inhabits hilly forests above an elevation of , but descends to in winter. It prefers elevations of in the

Conservation

''Capricornis sumatraensis'' is listed in

CITES Appendix I CITES (shorter acronym for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of inte ...

Notes

References

Himalayan serow The Himalayan serow (''Capricornis sumatraensis thar''), also known as the thar ( , ), is a subspecies of the mainland serow native to the Himalayas. It was previously considered its own species, as ''Capricornis thar''. It is the official stat ...

Fauna of Eastern Himalaya Fauna of Sikkim

Taxa named by Brian Houghton Hodgson Symbols of Mizoram {{eventoedungulate-stub