Between about 1930 and 1960 a variety of small goats of the West African Dwarf group of breeds of West Africa were imported from zoos in Germany to the United States, to be exhibited in zoos or used as research animals. Some came into the hands of private breeders who kept and bred them as companion animals. By the 1970s, two distinct types had developed: one broad, compact and solid like the original African stock, the other more delicate, much like a dairy goat in miniature. The latter became the Nigerian Dwarf, while the former became the American Pygmy, for which a breed society was established in 1975, and a herd book started in the same year.