Capra ibex
The Alpine ibex, also known as the steinbock, is a European species of goat which lives in the Alps. It is one of ten species in the genus Capra, and its closest living relative is the Iberian ibex. The Alpine ibex is a sexually dimorphic species; males are much larger and carry much larger, longer horns than females. Its coat is brownish-grey. Alpine ibexes tend to live in steep, rough terrain and open alpine meadows. They can be found at elevations as high as 3,300 m (10,800 ft) and their sharp hooves allow them to scale the steep slopes and cliffs of their mountainous habitat.

Giles Laurent · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- Alpine ibexPBDB
- Sits inside
- CapraPBDB
- Diet
- grazer, browserPBDB, for Bovidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Bovidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Artiodactyla
Time the record covers
At least 117 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 129 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
21 occurrences of Capra ibex on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
21 occurrences- Pleistocene95%
- Holocene5%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Capra ibex and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Capra ibex and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
223 taxa- Dama dama12 sites
- Bos primigenius11 sites
- Vulpes vulpes11 sites
- Sus scrofa10 sites
- Canis lupus9 sites
- Capreolus capreolus9 sites
- Panthera pardus9 sites
- Cervus8 sites
- Cervus elaphus8 sites
- Ursus arctos7 sites
- Equus5 sites
- Felis5 sites
- Glis glis5 sites
- Lynx lynx5 sites
- Meles meles5 sites
- Microtus5 sites
- Rupicapra rupicapra5 sites
- Ursus5 sites
- Crocuta crocuta4 sites
- Lepus4 sites
- Megaloceros4 sites
- Microtus arvalis4 sites
- Panthera leo4 sites
- Vulpes4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 21 sites for Capra ibex, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
13 references- Quaternary large mammals from the Apidima Caves (Lakonia, S. Peloponnese, Greece4
- I giacimenti Quaternari di vertebrati fossili nell'Italia Nord-Orientale4
- Asprochaliko and Kastritsa: Further Investigations of Palaeolithic Settlement and Economy in Epirus (North-West Greece)2
- La grotte de l'Observatoire à Monaco2
- New Neanderthal remains from Mani peninsula, Southern Greece: The Kalamakia Middle Paleolithic cave site1
- Intensification of small game resources at Klissoura Cave 1 (Peloponnese, Greece) from the Middle Paleolithic to Mesolithic1
- The Late Pleistocene fauna of Peneiós Valley (Lárissa, Thessaly, Greece): new collected material1
- Neanderthal exploitation of marine mammals in Gibraltar1
- Presence of the Northern Bald Ibis Geronticus eremita (L.) during the Holocene in the Ardèche valley, southern France1
- Paleontological and stratigraphical research in Loutrá Aridéas bear cave (Almopia Speleopark, Pella, Macedonia, Greece)1
- Cave bears and paleolithic artifacts in Yarimburgaz Cave, Turkey: Dissecting a palimpsest1
- New Evidence of Middle Pleistocene mammal fauna from the Perama Cave (Ioannina, Greece)1
Each of the 21 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 1 further reference is not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Capra ibex
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Giles Laurent
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Structured light scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Credit
- AMNH Mammal Collections
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Capra ibex · AMNH:Mammals:M-21476
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Alpine ibex”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itCapra through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758