EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Muskox Madness

Muskox (Ovibos moschatus), Family Bovidae
Northwest Alaska, USA

Explanation:  During one of the trips for the expedition described in the last EPOW episode, I viewed this ancient and rather comical scene.  

We are flying over the shrub tundra of northwest Alaska above the Arctic Circle, in a small, 4-seater, single-engine plane, at this point barely 800 feet over the ground at a hundred miles a hour.  Suddenly, we spot two large brown boulders appearing out of the greenery.  But these are no boulders, they are muskox, an ancient form once widespread across much of the Arctic of Siberia and North America, but now much reduced in numbers and distributions.

We made two low passes over this site, the first to view the animals peacefully grazing.  However, our appearance and the roar of the airplane engine seemed to startle them, and on the second pass they suddenly grew so agitated that they started to butt heads in aggression!  

Browsing on willows and grazing on tundra grasses, these two muskoxen
are enjoying the brief greenery bloom of the arctic summer
next to a "thermokarst" meltwater tundra pond.

Both sexes sport the long, outward-curling horns.