Ibex

Cliff-dwellers

Alpine ibex live on terrain that other large mammals literally can’t access — steep limestone cliffs at altitudes of 2,000–4,500 m. Their hooves have a hard outer edge and a soft, rubbery sole that grips rock with friction, allowing nearly impossible footing. Photographs of ibex licking salt from near-vertical dam walls in northern Italy regularly go viral; they’re not artificially climbing — they’re using normal foraging routes.

Recovered from near-extinction

By 1800, the entire Alpine ibex population had been reduced to fewer than 100 individuals in a single area of northern Italy (the Gran Paradiso). King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy created a royal hunting reserve specifically to protect the last ibex herd — the precursor to today’s Gran Paradiso National Park.

Reintroductions throughout the 20th century gradually restored populations across the Alps. Today there are roughly 50,000 Alpine ibex distributed across the Alps. Every one is descended from that small Italian survivor population — a textbook genetic-bottleneck conservation case.

The horns

Male Alpine ibex develop massive curved horns up to 1 meter long, with horizontal ridges marking each year of growth (you can age an ibex from its rings, like a tree). The horns are weapons in male-male combat during the rut, when males rear up on their hindlegs and crash horns together with sufficient force to be heard from over a kilometer away.