Bovidae in Chinese mythology from Kashmir to Iran, including much desert country characteristic of the historic Western Regions. The European mouflon ("Ovis musimon") is thought to be the ancestor of the modern domestic sheep ("Ovis aries"), and was historically herded by the Xiong Nu, and other population groups located in or near China. The domestic goat ("Capra aegagrus hircus") is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. Another species historically found wild in parts of China include the serow and the goral. This group includes various miscellaneous species, including gazelles. Species which have historically ranged in
Taxonomy of wheat the fertile crescent of the Near East. All the other species are domesticated. Although relatively few genes control domestication, and wild and domesticated forms are interfertile, wild and domesticated wheats occupy entirely separate habitats. Traditional classification gives more weight to domesticated status. All wild wheats are hulled: they have tough glumes (husks) that tightly enclose the grains. Each "package" of glumes, lemma and palaea, and grain(s) is known as a spikelet. At maturity the rachis (central stalk of the cereal ear) disarticulates, allowing the spikelets to disperse. The first domesticated wheats, einkorn and emmer, were hulled like their wild ancestors,