“The Toughest Of All Yellowstone’s Animals” – Bighorn Sheep Square Off In Brutal Fight Over A Mate

The brutal winters at Yellowstone National Park hardly faze the bighorn sheep compared to other animals. They can endure the brutal, biting winds of the open landscape, and are named by BBC Earth as the “toughest” in all the grand land.

It’s quite a lengthy run-up to the eventual showdown between no fewer than three of these rams, but let me tell you that the wait is well worth it. If you think collisions on the football field that used to involve Aaron Donald and the Los Angeles Rams were bone-crunching, get a load of what these fellas get up to:

For me what really makes this entertaining is the brief, quite literal “hanging in suspense” move the rams make before they explode downward and smash their horns into each other. Obviously this creature has evolved to develop a threshold for such head-on trauma, but I still don’t know how all of them aren’t collectively dazed once they make their initial impact. Instead, they keep battering away at each other until someone caves.

This ritual of sorts is, of course, in the name of mating season. I thought Yellowstone’s bison were severe in their competition for females. The bighorn sheep take it to a whole other level here — even to comedic effect. Before they lock horns, the rams essentially nut check each other, sizing up each others’ manhood as a measure of who’d be a worthy adversary, or so I’d assume. I wonder if our very distant ancestors engaged in such tactics. Wouldn’t put it past them.

There aren’t many other animals I’d less want to encounter in an open arena such as this. A quick Google search tells me that rams can reach up to 40 mph during these rut bouts before they collide. So there ain’t no running away. No wonder male bighorn sheep serve as an NFL mascot in the massive market of Los Angeles. Not many more intimidating specimens in nature come to mind.