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
European mouflon 800. In Sardinia, the numbers in 1955 were around 700, but in 1967 this had fallen to just 300. Through protection programmes, the population rose however to over 1,000 in 1980. In 2015 there were an estimated 6,000 mouflon in Sardinia. The relatively low numbers in Corsica contrast with the rest of the current range of the mouflon. Today the largest numbers live in the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary and Austria and there are still large populations in France, Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia and Bulgaria. In the introduced populations of Central Europe it is estimated that there are over 60,000 mouflon