Drive Thru Safari - Royal Yak

Yaks are heavily built animals with bulky frames, sturdy legs, rounded, cloven hooves, and extremely dense, long fur that hangs down lower than the belly. While wild yaks are generally dark, blackish to brown in colouration, domestic yaks can be quite variable in colour, often having patches of rusty brown and cream. They have small ears and wide foreheads, with smooth horns that are generally dark in colour. In males (bulls), the horns sweep out from the sides of the head, and then curve forward.

Both sexes have long shaggy hair with a dense woolly undercoat over the chest, flanks, and thighs to insulate them from the cold. Especially in bulls, this may form a long "skirt" that can reach the ground. The tail is long and horselike rather than tufted like the tails of cattle or bison. Domesticated yaks have a wide range of coat colours, with some individuals being white, grey, brown, roan or piebald.

Yak physiology is well adapted to high altitudes, having larger lungs and heart than cattle found at lower altitudes, as well as greater capacity for transporting oxygen through their blood. Further adaptations to the cold include a thick layer of subcutaneous fat, and almost complete lack of functional sweat glands.

Compared with domestic cattle, the rumen of yaks is unusually large, relative to the omasum. This likely allows them to consume greater quantities of low-quality food at a time, and to ferment it longer so as to extract more nutrients. Yak consume the equivalent of 1% of their body weight daily while cattle require 3% to maintain condition.

Domesticated yaks have been kept for thousands of years, primarily for their milk, fiber and meat, and as beast of burden. Their dried droppings are an important fuel, used all over Tibet, and are often the only fuel available on the high treeless Tibetan Plateau. Yaks transport goods across mountain passes for local farmers and traders and are an attraction for climbing and trekking expeditions. As you can see here, the yak of the Promised Land have an easy and peaceful life.