Introduction
The Bovinae subfamily are within the Bovidae family of the order Artiodactyla and fall under the class Mammalia within the phylum Chordata and the kingdom Animalia. In the past 20 years, the genetic divergence between species within Bovinae was largely unknown, and characterizations were made on physical differences (Janecek et al. 1996). However, since the early phylogenetic publications, molecular work has characterized differences within the Bovinae subfamily.
Bovinae are characterized as having unique BovB retroposons that identify cattle, nilgais, and spiral-horned antelope as being closely related (Nilsson et al. 2012). Bovinae members are herbivores and possess cloven hooves (i.e., split into two toes) and two or four true horns that are not branched. This subfamily includes ruminant ungulates that have diets comprised largely of grass and have sexually dimorphic characteristics. In fact, all male antelope contained within this subfamily...
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Costa, J.H.C., Cantor, M.C., Neave, H.W. (2018). Bovine Life History. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_837-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_837-1
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