The Badlands bighorn (Ovis canadensis auduboni), commonly known as Audubon's bighorn sheep, is an extinct subspecies of bighorn sheep of the northern Great Plains in North America. Its existence as a separate subspecies is disputed.
While the one common name refers to the Badlands region of the Dakotas, it inhabited a larger range that included Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota.[1]
Some sources assert that the subspecies was hunted to extinction in the early 1900s.[2][3] Others claim that the subspecies persisted as long as 1926.[4]
Biologists Wehausen and Ramey assert that it was not a unique bighorn sheep subspecies but rather a variation of the widespread Rocky Mountain Bighorn (Ovis canadensis canadensis).[5] Some later studies do not support the existence of the Badlands Bighorn as a distinct subspecies.[6]
Rocky Mountain bighorn have replaced the subspecies/variation in its former habitats.[7]
The Badlands bighorn (Ovis canadensis auduboni), commonly known as Audubon's bighorn sheep, is an extinct subspecies of bighorn sheep of the northern Great Plains in North America. Its existence as a separate subspecies is disputed.
