KidZone Animals
Musk Ox: Mating

Photographed by Mick Thompson;
used with permission under CC BY-NC 2.0

Males compete for the right to breed with the females by strutting, swinging their heads and ultimately charging into one another head-on. These confrontations are referred to as "ruts". On impact, the brow bands of the horns of each male collide with the other making a loud, distinctive, hollow noise that can be heard for over a kilometer.

During the charge toward each other the male muskox can reach speeds of about 50 km per hour, and they may repeat the charge as many as a dozen times before one of them gives up and runs away. The winning male will become the singular, dominant male in the herd and impregnate all of the females in its herd of about 6 to 12 animals.