World Goat Day - August 21

Happy World Goat Day! This is another holiday where the webpage I used to use for it disappeared so I'm writing one to replace it.

As is often the case I don't know why today was selected for World Goat Day. As a species that was domesticated back in prehistoric times, today's date is unlikely to denote some milestone in human-goat relations. Regardless of why today's date is World Goat Day, goats have been important livestock for an estimated 10,000 years.

But I don't think today is supposed to be about the domesticated goat in particular; since the original webpage I had for it was for a zoo, I suspect today is about celebrating all the animals in the goat genus. This includes guys like the Markhor (the world's largest goat), various ibexes like the Alpine Ibex, domesticated goats, et al. (Sorry Mountain Goat, but unfortunately you're not considered to be a true goat, though clearly a goat relative.)

Further up the taxonomy hierarchy, goats are in the oddly named goat-antelope subfamily. Why do I say it's oddly named? Well, the subfamily includes goats ... but does not include antelopes. Unsurprisingly this subfamily does include sheep, but surprisingly includes Musk Oxen. This information is just provided as background though; AFAIK this holiday isn't about celebrating sheep or Musk Oxen.
Markhor
Photo by Nick Sokolov on Unsplash


Alpine Ibex
By Onésime - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29253456

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