• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Dzo: Hybrids Beasts That Are Perfectly Crafted For Life On Earth’s Highest Mountains

July 4, 2025 by Deborah Bloomfield

Among the breathless heights of the Tibetan Plateau, a fascinating hybrid animal is commonly seen lugging backpacks and showing off its horns. Its name is the dzo, or dzomo; the product of interspecies romping between a yak and a cow.

The yak-cattle hybrids are known as “dzo” if they’re male and “dzomo” if they’re female. The males are infertile, but the females can produce fertile offspring. Dzomo can also be backcrossed, meaning they can reproduce with their parent species. As a result, the gene pool is pretty muddled, although scientists have been able to untangle it to uncover their evolutionary history.

A genetic analysis in 2023 found that yaks were first domesticated in the Tibetan Plateau 7,500 years ago. Furthermore, the researchers found that yak-cattle hybridization occurred in the region around 2,670 to 2,360 years ago. 

Like some other hybrids, they combine some of the most desirable traits of both parent species.

Yak or dzo in Himalayas mountains, yaks herd, beautiful view from the foothills of the Himalayas to the main ridge with the peak of Makalu mountain, Nepal Himalaya mountain

Yak and dzo can live happily side by side in herds.

Image credit: Daniel Prudek/Shutterstock.com

Yaks are well adapted to the high-altitude regions of Central Asia, particularly the Himalayan region and the Tibetan Plateau. Along with their long hair and sturdy builds, they’ve evolved genetic traits that help them survive the mountain’s low oxygen levels and intense solar radiation.

The drawback of yaks, as far as humans are concerned, is that they don’t produce much milk. Enter: the domestic cattle, animals that have been selectively bred for high milk and meat production.

When the two animals reproduce, they can produce hybrids that strike a nice balance, producing more milk than yaks while retaining the hardiness needed to thrive in the mountains.

“Hybridization allows cattle to move high, and yak to move low at the same time they produce more milk,” Xinyi Liu, an associate professor of archaeology at Washington University and co-author of the genetic analysis, explained.

The hybridization of yaks is once again stepping in to meet the new global crisis of climate change. In the remote eastern Himalayas, the Brokpa people, a semi-nomadic pastoralist community, are crossbreeding yaks with their hardy hybrids to create new breeds that are better suited to warming temperatures, longer summers, and dwindling pastures.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Audi launches its newest EV, the 2022 Q4 e-tron SUV
  2. Dinosaur Prints Found Under Restaurant Table Confirmed As 100 Million Years Old
  3. Archax: Japanese Engineers Make Transformer Robot That Actually Works
  4. How Do We Know There Is Anything Beyond The Observable Universe?

Source Link: Dzo: Hybrids Beasts That Are Perfectly Crafted For Life On Earth's Highest Mountains

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Meet The “Four-Eyed” Hirola, The World’s Most Endangered Antelope With Fewer Than 500 Left
  • The Bizarre 1997 Experiment That Made A Frog Levitate
  • There’s A Very Good Reason Why October 1582 On Your Phone Is Missing 10 Days
  • Skynet-1A: Military Spacecraft Launched 56 Years Ago Has Been Moved By Persons Unknown
  • There’s A Simple Solution To Helping Avoid Erectile Dysfunction (But You’re Not Going To Like It)
  • Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS May Be 10 Billion Years Old, This Rare Spider Is Half-Female, Half-Male Split Down The Middle, And Much More This Week
  • Why Do Trains Not Have Seatbelts? It’s Probably Not What You Think
  • World’s Driest Hot Desert Just Burst Into A Rare And Fleeting Desert Bloom
  • Theoretical Dark Matter Infernos Could Melt The Earth’s Core, Turning It Liquid
  • North America’s Largest Mammal Once Numbered 60 Million – Then Humans Nearly Drove It To Extinction
  • North America’s Largest Ever Land Animal Was A 21-Meter-Long Titan
  • A Two-Headed Fossil, 50/50 Spider, And World-First Butt Drag
  • Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Is Losing Buckets Of Water Every Second – And It’s Got Cyanide
  • “A Historic Shift”: Renewables Generated More Power Than Coal Globally For First Time
  • The World’s Oldest Known Snake In Captivity Became A Mom At 62 – No Dad Required
  • Biggest Ocean Current On Earth Is Set To Shift, Spelling Huge Changes For Ecosystems
  • Why Are The Continents All Bunched Up On One Side Of The Planet?
  • Why Can’t We Reach Absolute Zero?
  • “We Were Onto Something”: Highest Resolution Radio Arc Shows The Lowest Mass Dark Object Yet
  • How Headsets Made For Cyclists Are Giving Hearing And Hope To Kids With Glue Ear
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version