Wildlife of Armenia Wildlife of Armenia The wildlife of Armenia includes wild boars, porcupines, various lizards, snakes and numerous species of birds. Endangered species living in Armenia are the Caucasian bear, Caucasian bearded goat, the Armenian mouflon (sheep) and the leopard. Fauna in Armenia is diverse given the country's relatively small geographic size, owing to the varied habitats created by the area's mountainous terrain. Armenia is an important area for migratory animals, about 350 different bird species were recorded in the country. Many of the world's domesticated animals originated in or near Armenia, and the mouflon, the ancestor of domesticated sheep, is present
Dmitry Belyayev (zoologist) also been of great interest to Darwin. It was recognized that domesticated animals differ in several ways from their wild counterparts, but it was not known what principle of selection had guided the Neolithic farmers who had first domesticated these species thousands of years ago. Belyayev's hypothesis was that "all domesticated species had been selected for a single criterion: tameness." Belyayev further theorized that this attribute "had dragged along with it most of the other features that distinguish domestic animals from their wild forebears, like droopy ears, patches of white in the fur and changes in skull shape." In other