Other Mammals - Sounds Wild
Muskox Hair

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Muskox Hair

A muskox calf calls out before his morning feeding at the Alaska zoo. Biologists are studying wild muskox and captive muskox are helping by supplying strands of hair from their shaggy coats. Like the analysis of hair for drug testing in people, hair from animals reveals chemicals, elements like mercury, hormones and environmental contaminants. Stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen can be detected in hair, correlating to diet and seasonal changes in diet. Reproductive hormones may indicate pregnancy and steroid hormones correlate to stress.

Testing hair from captive muskox with known histories helps biologist understand what is detected in wild muskox.

The fresh green plant growth that wild muskox eat in the spring is more nitrogen-rich than their winter diet. When detected as stable isotopes of nitrogen in a length of hair, this graphs on a timeline as seasonal peaks and valleys. Events like a pregnancy or a stressful winter can be sequenced on a timeline and correlated with other information like weather data and can indicate how environmental conditions might affect the animals.