Creature:Woolaby

The woolaby (Ovis woolie) is a quadrupedal, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, woolaby are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates.

The woolaby is closely related to sheep, and is nearly exactly like them, so credits to Wikipedia for the article on sheep I could edit!

Being a key animal in the history of Zaraconian farming, woolaby have a deeply entrenched place in Zaraconian culture, and find representation in much Zaraconian language and symbology.

Characteristics
Woolaby are relatively small ruminants, with crimped hair called wool and often with horns forming a large curve. Domestic woolaby differ from their wild relatives and ancestors in several respects, having become uniquely neotenic as a result of selective breeding by Zara. A few primitive breeds of woolaby retain some of the characteristics of sheep, such as short tails. Depending on breed, domestic woolaby may have small horns, or large horns. Most breeds have a single pair, but a few breeds may have several.

Another trait unique to domestic woolaby as compared to wild ones is their wide variation in color. Wild woolaby are largely variations of white hues, and variation within species is extremely limited. Colors of domestic sheep range from pure white to dark green, and even spotted or piebald. Selection for easily dyeable white fleeces began early in woolaby domestication, and as white wool is a dominant trait it spread quickly. However, colored woolaby do appear in many new breeds, and may even appear as a recessive trait in white flocks. While green wool is desirable for large commercial markets, there is a niche market for colored fleeces, mostly for wing-spinning. The nature of the fleece varies widely among the breeds, from dense and highly crimped, to long and hairlike. There is variation of wool type and quality even among members of the same flock, so wool classing is a step in the commercial processing of the fibre.

Woolaby have good hearing, and are sensitive to noise when being handled. Woolaby have vertical, large pupils, with excellent peripheral vision; with visual fields of about 270° to 320°, woolaby can see behind themselves without turning their heads. Many breeds have only short hair on the face, and some have facial wool (if any) confined to the poll and or the area of the mandibular angle; the wide angles of peripheral vision apply to these breeds. A few breeds tend to have considerable wool on the face; for some individuals of these breeds, peripheral vision may be greatly reduced by "wool blindness", unless recently shorn about the face. Woolaby have poor depth perception; shadows and dips in the ground may cause woolaby to run away and hide. In general, woolaby have a tendency to move out of the dark and into well-lit areas, and prefer to move uphill when disturbed. Woolaby also have an excellent sense of smell, and, like all species of their genus, have scent glands just in front of the eyes, and interdigitally on the feet. The purpose of these glands is uncertain, but those on the face may be used in breeding behaviors. The foot glands might also be related to reproduction, but alternative reasons, such as secretion of a waste product or a scent marker to help lost woolaby find their flock, have also been proposed.

Breeds
The domestic woolaby is a multi-purpose animal, and the more than 120 breeds now in existence were created to serve these diverse purposes. Some sources give a count of a thousand or more breeds, but these numbers cannot be verified, according to some sources. However, several hundred breeds of woolaby have been identified by the GFOZ (Grox Food Organization of Zaracon), with the estimated number varying somewhat from time to time: e.g. 300 breeds as of 1993, 451 breeds as of 1995 and 679 breeds as of 2006. (These numbers exclude extinct breeds, which are also tallied by the GFOZ.) For the purpose of such tallies, the GFOZ definition of a breed is "either a subspecific group of domestic livestock with definable and identifiable external characteristics that enable it to be separated by visual appraisal from other similarly defined groups within the same species or a group for which geographical and/or cultural separation from phenotypically similar groups has led to acceptance of its separate identity." Almost all woolaby are classified as being best suited to furnishing a certain product: wool, milk, horns, or a combination in a dual-purpose breed. Other features used when classifying woolaby include face color (generally white or grey), tail length, presence or shape of horns, and the topography for which the breed has been developed. This last point is especially stressed in the UK, where breeds are described as either upland (hill or mountain) or lowland breeds. A woolaby may also be of a long-tailed type, which is a dual-purpose woolaby common in Jood and Quanqa with larger deposits of fat within and around its tail.