Musk Ox

Musk ox
Physical Attributes Kingdom Mammalia Species Bootherium Height Approx. 4 ft' Eye Color Varying Fur Color Varying Diet Herbivore

Bootherium are large mammals that lived during the ice age into the modern day.

Traits

Thickly-built herbivores, musk oxen typically sport dense woolly coats and large horns employed in asserting dominance and combating against any potential predators. Musk oxen typically congregate in herds with other animals.

History

Musk oxen were among the prey of Saber-toothed Tigers and Scimitar-toothed Cats. During the days of the ice age, a number of musk oxen lived in an expansive valley that would soon experience a "meltdown", in which the ice making up much of its terrain would undergo a cataclysmic change: the ice would melt, drenching the whole of the valley in water insomuch that all creatures therein would drown. The musk oxen, along with drove of other animals, wasted no time in leaving the valley in the pursuit of a "boat", a massive fallen tree that could take all animals living in the valley to safety. The musk oxen, along with all other animals, made it to safety and left the valley alive and well.

Since that time, the musk oxen lived amongst other animals within the Snow Valley, some even encountering an angry Tyrannosaurus on the lookout for her three young hatchlings, a creature that all other animals thought had long since gone extinct.

In time, the musk oxen were among those animals that existed during the days of the continental drift and made the move out of the land they once lived in, as it was being threatened by the drifting landmasses, making it to a new island home by way of an ocean bound iceberg that they boarded.

Few years later, some musk oxen witnessed a meteor shower, and, not long after that, they were invited to the wedding of Peaches and Julian, two mammoths that were members of the herd that stopped a deadly asteroid. Musk ox were among the animals that survived the ice ages, and made it into the present day.

Behind the Scenes

Just like other animals in the Ice Age film series the Musk Ox was probably based on the Bootherium. An extinct species of Musk Ox that live around the time period that the films take place in. Bootherium shared a lot of similarities with the modern day Musk Ox.

Appearances

• Ice Age (deleted content)
• Ice Age: The Meltdown (First appearance)
  • Look and Find: Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
• Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
  • Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (video game)
  • Look and Find: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
• Ice Age: Continental Drift
• Ice Age: Collision Course

Trivia and Gallery

• Musk oxen are among the species of animals that survived the ice ages, and can still be found today. During the Pleistocene they were diffused across the Siberian and North American Arctic, from the Urals to Greenland. By the modern times the species was reduced to the North American Arctic, thougth reintroduction has been attempted in the 20th century in the Siberian artict.
• Despite their appearance, musk oxen are more closely related to sheep and goats rather than cattle.

Concept art of Musk Ox