A To Z - Y is for Yak

I don't have access to my computer right now so no pictures!  Sorry!

We are getting close to the end of the A to Z challenge.  I'm happy that I managed to stick with the whole thing.  I can be bad about getting started with things and then getting distracted by something else halfway through so I'm pretty excited to say I did it (tomorrow's post is scheduled so I'm not being premature hehe).  I hope everyone has had as much fun as I did!

So since I can't post the pictures I was going to share I'm just going to share some information on the yak.

The thing that surprised me when I started doing some research on Yaks is that almost all of them are domesticated now.  There is a small population of wild yak, but they are in danger.  In the 1990s there was an effort made to save them, but as far as I know there still aren't a lot of wild ones.

I think everyone has heard of Yaks before, but in case you haven't they are related to cattle (although there is speculation they may be more closely related to the American Bison).  They have extremely dense long hair, they are only second to the Gaur in shoulder height (among bovids) standing between five to seven feet tall at the shoulder and can weigh over two thousand pounds (domesticated Yaks are considerably smaller) and are generally dark black or brown (domesticated Yaks are more varied and can even have patches of other colors like a piebald).

Male Yaks have horns that are long and sweep forward, often 20 to 40 inches in length, while the females are considerably shorter and more upright.  Yaks are very friendly, easily trained and rarely show aggression toward humans.  Yaks have very little odor, in fact their wool is naturally odor resistant.

This is just the basic information.  There is a lot more I could get into, but I'm running out of time.  I do want to mention that the Yak is used for sports like Yak racing, Yak skiing and Yak polo in parts of Tibet and central Asia.  How cool would that be to watch?  I bet there are videos on Youtube, but I don't have time to look them up. Maybe later.  Sorry this is so short.  I feel like I'm slacking off on the final stages of the A to Z challenge, but at least I did all the posts.  :D  I'll try to get caught up on all of your posts as soon as possible!