Mountain goat
Amazing fact
Mountain goats dig shallow resting hollows in the ground.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
Mountain goats dig shallow resting hollows in the ground.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Mountain goat
- Scientific name
- Oreamnos americanus
- Japanese name
- シロイワヤギ
- Group
- Land mammals
- Class
- Mammalia
- Order
- Artiodactyla
- Family
- Bovidae
- Genus
- Oreamnos
It lives in the mountains of North America, such as the northern Rocky Mountains, and prefers steep, rocky places with cliffs.
It is covered in a thick white coat, and both males and females have thin black horns.
The soles of its hooves are almost like rubber, which helps it climb steep rocks.
How the Mountain goat lives
They are active from sunrise to midday and again at dusk. They eat grasses, woody plants and mosses among other vegetation. They tend to form small groups or live alone in summer and larger groups in winter.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity WebBasic data
- Size
- 1,245–1,787 mm
- Weight
- 56.8–81.8 kg
- Lifespan
- up to 18 years in the wild
- Active
- By day (diurnal)
- Diet
- Grasses, woody plants, mosses, lichens, herbaceous plants and other vegetation
- Range
- Southeastern Alaska to Washington, western Montana and central Idaho
Where the Mountain goat has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- シロイワヤギ
- 简体中文
- 雪羊
- 繁體中文
- 雪羊
- 한국어
- 흰바위산양
- Español
- Cabra de las Rocosas
- Français
- Chèvre des montagnes Rocheuses
- Deutsch
- Schneeziege
- Português (Brasil)
- Cabra-americana
- Italiano
- Capra delle nevi
- العربية
- معز الجبال الصخرية
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Canu
- Русский
- Снежная коза
- Türkçe
- Ak dağ keçisi
- ไทย
- แพะภูเขา
- বাংলা
- পাহাড়ি ছাগল
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web — Oreamnos americanusChecked: 2026-11-03
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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