Mouflon scientific literature as separate species, "Ovis musimon" and "Ovis orientalis". The mouflons are also sometimes treated as a subspecies of the domestic sheep, "Ovis aries", named with the same subspecific epithet as above: "O. a. musimon", "O. a. ophion", etc. Based on comparison of mitochondrial cytochrome b gene sequences, three groups of sheep ("Ovis") have been identified: Pachyceriforms of Siberia (snow sheep) and North America (bighorn and Dall sheep), Argaliforms (argali) of Central Asia, and Moufloniforms (urial, mouflon, and domestic sheep) of Eurasia. However, a comparison of the mitochondrial DNA control region (CR) found that two subspecies of urial, "Ovis
European mouflon over 1,000 metres, unlike deer which rely mainly on smell. Despite their small size and weight, mouflon are very hard to kill and have to be hunted with weapons of sufficiently high calibre in order to ensure successful first-time kills. In Germany the hunting of mouflon is governed by hunting rights in accordance with the Federal Hunting Act. In the 2015/16 hunting season the bag in Germany amounted to 8,000 mouflon (in 2010/11 there were 7,270), of which 3,000 were shot in Rhineland-Palatinate and Thuringia alone, 38% of the total cull. The numbers shot, unlike other huntable wild animals, have