A wild sheep of the dry mountains of North Africa.
Its coat is brown, with long white hair on the chin, throat, chest and inner front legs that looks like a beard. Both sexes have horns, but females have smaller ones.
Plant fragments in aoudad fecal samples from Tunisia’s Bou Hedma National Park revealed 19 food plants. The estimated annual diet consisted of about 67% grasses, 17% browse and 16% forbs. The animals relied mainly on grasses while also including woody leaves and herbaceous plants in their diet.
Two Stipa grasses made up about 63% of the annual diet. The mix shifted seasonally: grasses were most common in spring and summer, browse increased in autumn, and forbs were used most in winter. This changing menu shows how aoudad draw on different plants across the dry mountain year.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
Fecal analysis in Tunisia’s Bou Hedma National Park found that grasses made up about two-thirds of the local aoudad diet. Food composition changed by season, with browse more common in autumn and forbs in winter. Conserving seasonal forage areas is relevant to habitat management at this site.