All about Gaur (Bos gaurus)

[Roflcopters]

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A huge Gaur bull from Bandipur Tiger Reserve, 2010

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Big bull from Kanha National Park

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Big Male bull crossing road, Bandipur

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Big Bull from Bandipur

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An old Bull

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Another powerful bull from the South

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Big male from Kabini

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A Gaur from Thailand and a Man standing next to it

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How big is a Gaur?


Just how big are wild gaur (Bos gaurus)? Its a bit hard to tell until you have something to reference one by, but having seen both males and females at pretty close quarters I had always likened them to a domestic cow in size, say a european Friesian. Recently I had some pictures from a camera trap (an automatic camera) that I was going through and a set of frames contained an old male bull gaur. I was a bit surprised that he fully filled the frame because the camera had been set specifically for gaur and I was wondering how I had got the framing wrong. I then realized that I had a reference frame (photo) from when the camera was setup in the forest. A member of our group. The reference is ideal because the camera is in exactly the same position for both shots. I was surprised just how big this old male gaur is - taking into account that the human in the reference shot is 6 foot 3 (1.9 meters), then I realized that Paul was stood closer to the camera than the gaur! So he will seem larger than he actually is on this 35mm lens wide angle shot, and the gaur will seem a tad smaller. Wild Male Gaur truely are huge bovines.


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