Grazers and Browsers

Iberian Ibex

The Iberian Ibex (Capra pyrenaica) are strong mountainous animals characterized by their large and flexible hooves and short legs. These physical adaptations allow them to be able to run and leap on bare, rocky, rough, and steep slopes. This gives them an advantage over potential predators that cannot reach them because of the terrain. The Iberian Ibex is generally a mixed feeder between a browser and a grazer, depending on the plant availability in their home range.

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Vicuña

The Vicuña (Vicugna vicugna) is one of the two wild South American camelids which live in the high alpine areas of the Andes, the other being the guanaco. Vicuñas produce small amounts of extremely fine wool, which is very expensive because the animal can only be shorn every three years and has to be caught from the wild. The Vicuña is the national animal of Peru and appears in the Peruvian coat of arms.
Vicuñas are native to the central Andes in South America. They are found in Peru, northwestern Argentina, Bolivia, and northern Chile. Vicuñas live at altitudes of 3,200 to 4,800 m. They feed in the daytime on the grassy plains of the Andes Mountains but spend the nights on the slopes.

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Water Buffalo

Water Buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) spend much of their day submerged in the muddy waters of Asia’s tropical and subtropical forests. Their wide-splayed hoofed feet prevent them from sinking too deeply in the mud and allow them to move about in wetlands and swamps. These marshes provide good cover and rich aquatic plants to forage on, although water buffalo actually prefer to feed in grasslands on grass and herbs. Males carry enormous backward-curving, crescent-shaped horns stretching close to 5 feet long with deep ridges on their surface. Females are smaller in size and weight, but they also have horns, although they are proportionately smaller.

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Guanaco

The Guanaco (Lama guanicoe) is a camelid native to South America, closely related to the llama. Guanaco is one of the largest terrestrial mammals native to today's South America. The Guanaco has thick skin on its neck, a trait also found in its domestic counterpart, the llama and in its relatives, the wild vicuña, and domesticated alpaca. This protects its neck from predator attacks. Bolivians use the neck-skin of these animals to make shoes, flattening and pounding the skin to be used for the soles. In Chile, hunting is allowed only in Tierra del Fuego, where the only population not classified as endangered in the country resides.

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Asian Elephant

The Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) is the only living species of the genus Elephas and is distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, from India in the west, Nepal in the north, Sumatra in the south, and to Borneo in the east. The Asian Elephant is the largest living land animal in Asia.
In general, the Asian elephant is smaller than the African Bush Elephant and has the highest body point on the head. The back is convex or level. The ears are small with dorsal borders folded laterally. It has up to 20 pairs of ribs and 34 caudal vertebrae. The feet have more nail-like structures than those of African elephants—five on each forefoot, and four on each hindfoot. The forehead has two hemispherical bulges, unlike the flat front of the African Elephant.

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