Ovis aries

AnRo0002 · CC0 · via Wikidata/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
- domestic sheepPBDB
- Sits inside
- OvisPBDB
- 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 762 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 774 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 7.246 Mya to 0 Mya.
33 occurrences of Ovis aries 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
33 occurrences- Mioceneunder 1%
- Pliocene1%
- Pleistocene55%
- Holocene43%
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.
Ovis aries and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Ovis aries and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
461 taxa- Bos taurus16 sites
- Capra hircus14 sites
- Hystrix africaeaustralis12 sites
- Taurotragus oryx12 sites
- Panthera pardus11 sites
- Procavia capensis11 sites
- Sus scrofa11 sites
- Bovidae10 sites
- Homo sapiens10 sites
- Mellivora capensis10 sites
- Raphicerus campestris10 sites
- Hippopotamus amphibius9 sites
- Lepus9 sites
- Syncerus caffer9 sites
- Alcelaphus buselaphus8 sites
- Cervus elaphus8 sites
- Equus8 sites
- Equus capensis8 sites
- Felis lybica8 sites
- Galerella pulverulenta8 sites
- Oreotragus oreotragus8 sites
- Papio ursinus8 sites
- Phacochoerus aethiopicus8 sites
- Arctocephalus pusillus7 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 33 sites for Ovis aries, 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
29 references- The Kor & Bot collection revisited, with a biostratigraphic interpretation of the Early Pleistocene Oosterschelde Fauna (Oosterschelde Estuary, the Netherlands)2
- Faunal Evidence for Early Stockkeeping in the Central Rift Valley of Kenya: Preliminary Findings2
- Paleoenvironmental and Cultural Implications of Late Holocene Archaeological Faunas from the Orange Free State and North Central Cape Province, South Africa2
- A Later Prehistory of Tangier, Morocco2
- A 9,000 Year History of Seal Hunting on Lake Baikal, Siberia: The Zooarchaeology of Sagan-Zaba II1
- The Middle and Later Stone Age faunal remains from Diepkloof Rock Shelter, Western Cape, South Africa1
- Blombos Cave, Southern Cape, South Africa: Preliminary Report on the 1992–1999 Excavations of the Middle Stone Age Levels1
- Middle and later Stone Age large mammal and tortoise remains from Die Kelders Cave 1, Western Cape Province, South Africa1
- I giacimenti Quaternari di vertebrati fossili nell'Italia Nord-Orientale1
- Dating, Archaeology and Human Fossils from the Middle Stone Age Levels of Die Kelders, South Africa1
- Environmental, Ecological and Paleoanthropological Implications of the Late Pleistocene Mammalian Fauna from Equus Cave, Northern Cape Province, South Africa1
- Faunal Evidence for Prehistoric Herder-Forager Activites at Kasteelberg, Western Cape Province, South Africa1
Each of the 33 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. 17 further references are 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 content3

Picture of Ovis aries
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- AnRo0002
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D scan
- Source
- Smithsonian
- Licence
- CC0 — this site’s default, not the record’s
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
- Specimen
- Ovis aries
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
MorphoSource was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itOvis through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758