Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Kouprey, Bos sauveli, once ranged from Kam­puchea to the Don­grak Moun­tains of east­ern Thai­land, south­ern Laos, and west­ern Viet­nam. They are cur­rently con­sid­ered likely to be ex­tinct, with the only pos­si­ble in­di­vid­u­als sur­viv­ing in small por­tions of east­ern Cam­bo­dia, where there are some poorly pro­tected re­gions. (Hoff­mann, 1986; Tim­mins, et al., 2008)

• Biogeographic Regions
• oriental
  • native

Habi­tat

Kouprey are found in open for­est and sa­van­nas, often near thick mon­soon forests. This kind of habi­tat is cre­ated by nat­ural for­est dis­tur­bance and slash-and-burn agri­cul­ture. (Mas­si­cot, 2002)

• Habitat Regions
• tropical
• terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• savanna or grassland
• forest

• Other Habitat Features
• agricultural

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

An adult kouprey ranges in shoul­der height from 170 to 190 cm. The head and body length mea­sure­ments range from 210 to 223 cm. The tail reaches a length of 100 cm and the av­er­age adult weighs be­tween 680 and 910Kg. Bulls have a dewlap (skin fold that hangs from the neck) which dis­tin­guishes this species from other wild cat­tle, and horns that split and fray at the tips at around three years of age. The horns of males can reach up to 80 cm in length. Fe­male kouprey also have horns, about half the length of male's horns, but theirs spi­ral up­wards. Both males and fe­males have notched nos­trils. Kouprey young are red­dish in color, but be­come more gray by five to six months of age. The young have lighter col­ored legs. Adult males are dark brown or black. (Hoff­mann, 1986; Huff­man, 2004; Kemf, 1988; Mas­si­cot, 2002)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• male larger
• sexes shaped differently
• ornamentation

• Range mass

  681 to 910 kg

  1500.00 to 2004.41 lb

• Range length

  223 to 210 cm

  87.80 to 82.68 in

Re­pro­duc­tion

There is lit­tle in­for­ma­tion avail­able on mat­ing sys­tems in kouprey. Their sex­ual di­mor­phism sug­gests some level of polyg­yny. In other bovids, males often com­pete for fe­males and suc­cess­ful males are polyg­y­nous. It is likely that this species is sim­i­lar.

Kouprey mate in the spring and calve in the win­ter (typ­i­cally De­cem­ber or Jan­u­ary). Fe­male kouprey have marked low fer­til­ity. The mother leaves the herd to give birth, and re­turns about a month after giv­ing birth to a sin­gle young. The ges­ta­tion pe­riod is 8 to 9 months. (Huff­man, 2004; Kemf, 1988)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• viviparous

• Breeding interval

  These animals are thought to breed annually.

• Breeding season

  Mating occurs in the spring.

• Range number of offspring

  1 (low)

• Average number of offspring

  1

• Average number of offspring

  1

  AnAge

• Range gestation period

  8 to 9 months

There is lit­tle data on the parental care habits of kouprey. As in other mam­mals, the fe­male pro­vides the bulk of parental care, pro­duc­ing milk for the young, groom­ing it, and pro­tect­ing it from dan­ger. Male parental care has not been noted.

• Parental Investment
• no parental involvement
• pre-fertilization
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-independence
  • protecting
    • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Kouprey have a lifes­pan of about 20 years. Lifes­pan is lim­ited by hunt­ing, in­breed­ing, and dis­ease. (Mas­si­cot, 2002)

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  20 years

Be­hav­ior

Kouprey have adapted a noc­tur­nal lifestyle ap­par­ently as a means of avoid­ing hu­mans. Kouprey re­treat to the for­est to es­cape the hot sun and emerge into the fields in the evening. Fe­male led herds, which in­cludes the bulls dur­ing the dry sea­son, reach twenty in­di­vid­u­als. Kouprey are de­scribed as ac­tive and rest­less. They dig in the ground and thrust into tree stumps, which causes the fray­ing of the male horns. They are more alert when com­pared to ban­teng and also run more grace­fully. Kouprey have been seen mix­ing with ban­teng and water buf­falo. They fre­quent salt licks and water holes, and roam up to 15 kilo­me­ters per night while graz­ing. The herds seper­ate and re­join fre­quently. (Huff­man, 2004; Kemf, 1988)

• Key Behaviors
• terricolous
• nocturnal
• motile
• nomadic
• social
• dominance hierarchies

Home Range

The home range size for these an­i­mals has not been re­ported.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

There is lit­tle known re­gard­ing kouprey com­mu­ni­ca­tion. How­ever, as mam­mals, they are likely to use some vi­sual sig­nals and body pos­tures in com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Scent is likely to play some role, es­pe­cially in iden­ti­fy­ing mates and off­spring. Bovids typ­i­cally vo­cal­ize to one an­other. Tac­tile com­mu­ni­ca­tion is prob­a­bly im­por­tant in com­pe­ti­tion and be­tween a mother and her off­spring.

• Communication Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

Kouprey graze on grasses, in­clud­ing bam­boo (Arundinella species), ploong (Arundinella se­tosa) and koom (Chlo­ris species). They fre­quent salt licks and water holes. (Hoff­mann, 1986; Huff­man, 2004)

• Primary Diet
• herbivore
  • folivore

• Plant Foods
• leaves
• roots and tubers

Pre­da­tion

The only known preda­tor of the kouprey is hu­mans. Kouprey have adapted a noc­tur­nal be­hav­ior to avoid human pre­da­tion. (Hen­drix, 1995; Huff­man, 2004; Mas­si­cot, 2002)

• Known Predators

  • humans (Homo sapiens)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Kouprey pro­vide food for hu­mans who share their range. They share ranges with ban­teng (Bos ja­van­i­cus) and water buf­falo (Bubalus bubalis), there may be some com­pe­ti­tion for food be­tween these species. (Hen­drix, 1995)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Kouprey have been used as food, al­though they are pro­tected by CITES Ap­pen­dix I. Kouprey are also thought to be very ge­net­i­cally di­verse and im­mune to cer­tain pests that plague do­mes­tic cat­tle in this re­gion. Cross-breed­ing be­tween kouprey and do­mes­tic cat­tle could po­ten­tially re­duce dis­ease. Kouprey horn and gall blad­der is con­sid­ered use­ful in tra­di­tional med­i­cine, but there are no doc­u­mented ben­e­fits of kouprey parts for hu­mans. (Heinen, 1996; Hen­drix, 1995; Kemf, 1988)

• Positive Impacts
• food
• body parts are source of valuable material
• source of medicine or drug
• research and education

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

There are no known ad­verse af­fects of kouprey on hu­mans.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Kouprey are likely to be ex­tinct. Re­cent sur­vey ef­forts have been un­suc­cess­ful find­ing live kouprey, al­though some horns have been found in mar­kets. High lev­els of hunt­ing in the last 30 years re­sulted in at least an 80% de­cline in pop­u­la­tion num­bers. If any kouprey re­main, there are most likely to be less than 50 ma­ture in­di­vid­u­als. Given these very small num­bers and no abate­ment to in­tense hunt­ing and poach­ing pres­sure, kouprey are in dire dan­ger or im­mi­nent ex­tinc­tion. The IUCN redlist con­sid­ers then Crit­i­cally En­dan­gered, pos­si­bly ex­tinct. With the fall of the Khmer Rouge in Cam­bo­dia, mar­kets for bush­meat and tro­phies surged, re­sult­ing in in­tense pres­sure on all large mam­mals in the re­gion. If any in­di­vid­u­als re­main, they are likely to be in small por­tions of east­ern Cam­bo­dia, where there are some pro­tected areas. There are no in­di­vid­u­als in cap­tiv­ity. (Heinen, 1996; Hen­drix, 1995; Hoff­mann, 1986; Huff­man, 2004; Kemf, 1988; Mas­si­cot, 2002)

• IUCN Red List

  Critically Endangered
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Critically Endangered
  More information

• US Federal List

  Endangered

• CITES

  Appendix I

Other Com­ments

There is fos­sil ev­i­dence that kouprey once resided in cen­tral China. In 1964, Prince Si­hanouk of Cam­bo­dia de­clared the kouprey to be the na­tional an­i­mal. It is in­ter­est­ing to note the strug­gle that has been going on to ob­tain in­for­ma­tion on this elu­sive an­i­mal. Many search par­ties have been formed only to come back empty handed, and with rarely even a pho­to­graph. The fear that kouprey may have gone ex­tinct is di­min­ished by the find­ing of horns in mar­kets, the oc­ca­sional dis­cov­ery of sign by re­searchers, and the sight­ings by lo­cals. There has been only one cap­tive an­i­mal (caught by mis­take), the orig­i­nal spec­i­men of Bos sauveli. This an­i­mal un­for­tu­nately died dur­ing World War I of star­va­tion. (Heinen, 1996; Hen­drix, 1995; Hoff­mann, 1986; Huff­man, 2004; Kemf, 1988; Mas­si­cot, 2002)

Con­trib­u­tors

Nancy Shef­ferly (ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web.

Jill Winker (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin-Stevens Point, Chris Yahnke (ed­i­tor, in­struc­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin-Stevens Point.

Ref­er­ences

Heinen, J. 1996. Sta­tus and Pro­tec­tion of Asian Wild Cat­tle and Buf­falo. Con­ser­va­tion Bi­ol­ogy, 10/4: 931-934.

Hen­drix, S. 1995. Quest for the Kouprey. In­ter­na­tional Wildlife Mag­a­zine, Sep/Oct. Ac­cessed (Date Un­known) at http://​www.​nwf.​org/​internationalwildlife/​kouprey.​html.

Hoff­mann, R. 1986. A New Lo­cal­ity Record for the Kouprey from Viet-Nam, and an Ar­chae­o­log­i­cal Record from China. Mam­malia, 3/50: 391-395.

Huff­man, B. 2004. "Kouprey" (On-line). The Ul­ti­mate Un­gu­late. Ac­cessed April 27, 2004 at http://​ultimateungulate.​com/​Artiodactyla/​Bos_​sauveli.​html.

Kemf, E. 1988. Fight­ing for the For­est Ox. New Sci­en­tist, 30: 51-53.

Mas­si­cot, P. 2002. "An­i­mal Info" (On-line ). Ac­cessed 11-15-02 at http://​www.​animalinfo.​org/​species/​artiperi/​bos_​sauv.​htm.

Tim­mins, R., S. Hedges, J. Duck­worth. 2008. "Bos sauvelis" (On-line). IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species. Ver­sion 2009.1. Ac­cessed Sep­tem­ber 15, 2009 at http://​www.​iucnredlist.​org/​details/​2890/​0.