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b'Thanks to Isaac for suggesting the chamois, our main topic this week!\\n\\nFurther reading:\\n\\nThe chamois in New Zealand\\n\\nExtinct goat was cold-blooded\\n\\nMyotragus balearicus: Extinction of mouse-goats\\n\\nA chamois in its summer coat:\\n\\n\\n\\nA chamois in its winter coat:\\n\\n\\n\\nMyotragus, the "cave goat," may have looked something like this museum restoration:\\n\\n\\n\\nNuralagus\'s femur (left) compared to a regular rabbit femur:\\n\\n\\n\\nShow Transcript:\\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\\nThis week we\\u2019re going to talk about an animal suggested by Isaac, the chamois, along with a few other animals. I realize we\\u2019ve talked about a lot of mammals lately so I\\u2019ll try to switch it up for the last few episodes of the year.\\nThe chamois is a species of what are called goat-antelopes. Its name is French and is spelled c-h-a-m-o-i-s, but in English a lot of people pronounce it \\u201cshammy.\\u201d Shammy is also what people call polishing cloths of various types, because it\\u2019s short for chamois. If you ever heard those commercials on TV for something called the sham-wow, that\\u2019s a paper towel thingy that\\u2019s based on the shammy cloth. The reason for all this confusion between an animal and a cloth is that the original shammy cloth was a piece of leather from the animal that was used to polish high-quality items like fancy cars since it\\u2019s very soft and won\\u2019t scratch anything. Most shammy cloths you buy these days are likely to be made from plush cloth or the skin of domestic goats or sheep.\\nAs for the animal, it\\u2019s native to mountainous parts of Europe, including the Alps. It\\u2019s also been introduced to New Zealand\\u2019s South Island where it\\u2019s an invasive species that threatens many native plants. Since chamois meat is considered a delicacy, commercial hunters in New Zealand travel into the mountains by helicopter, kill as many of the animals as possible, and bring the meat back to sell to restaurants. This is encouraged by the New Zealand government in an attempt to protect native plants, although red deer, feral goats, and hares are also introduced animals that do a lot of damage to the delicate mountain environment.\\nThe chamois is small, only about two and a half feet tall at the shoulder, or 80 cm. It has cloven hooves and both males and females have small black horns. The horns are mostly straight but bend backwards at the tips into a sort of hook shape, and while males have thicker horns, they aren\\u2019t usually that much longer than the female\\u2019s. Horns grow up to 11 inches long, or 28 cm.\\nIn summer the chamois\\u2019s fur is light brown with a darker stripe on each side of the face that runs from the nostrils, over the eyes, and up to the horns. In winter its fur grows very thick to keep it warm in its mountainous habitat, and it\\u2019s a much darker brown, almost black. It still has the dark band on its face with lighter colored fur on its cheeks and jaw, though. Its tail is very short and isn\\u2019t usually visible.\\nFemale chamois live in small groups along with their offspring. Males are solitary most of the year, but during mating season in autumn and early winter, called the rut, males fight each other for the attention of females. The female gives birth to a single kid in late spring. In the winter the chamois migrates to lower elevations where there\\u2019s more food, but in summer it migrates to high elevations above the treeline where it\\u2019s safer from predators. It can run extremely fast, up to about 30 miles per hour, or 50 km/hour, and can jump as much as 20 feet, or 6 meters. It can even jump over six and a half feet high, or 2 meters, straight up. It\\u2019s very bouncy.\\nI mentioned that the chamois is a goat-antelope, so let\\u2019s go back to that term. The goat-antelope isn\\u2019t actually a type of antelope, although it is an antelope relation. Goat-antelopes are bovids, along with antelopes, actual goats, sheep, cows, and many others. The goat-antelopes are members of the subfamily Caprinae, which includes goats, sheep, musk ox,'