Bovidae (Latin boves, “oxen”), large family of cloven-hoofed ruminants, characterized in the male, and usually also in the female, by the presence of unbranched, hollow horns that are never shed and continue to grow throughout life.

Animals in the Bovidae family include antelopes, such as the impala and gazelle, the American bison, the musk-ox, the bighorn sheep, and the Rocky Mountain goat. In the wild state, bovids are gregarious, nomadic animals, and they are swift runners. Bovids eat hurriedly and chew and digest at leisure. They feed on grass and other herbage. Many useful products are derived from parts of these animals, including milk, hair, skin, bones, horns, and dung. The animals themselves have often become beasts of burden.

A new species of bovid, the sao la, was discovered in 1993 in the Phu Quan nature reserve in Vietnam. No comparable discovery of a large mammal species had been made for at least 50 years prior to this.

Scientific classification: Bovids make up the family Bovidae, in the order Artiodactyla. The relationships of the Bovidae are complex. One method of classification divides the family into subfamilies as follows: Bovinae, including bison, the sao la, and all wild and domestic cattle; Caprinae, including sheep and goats; Aepycerotinae, including the impala; Alcelaphinae, including the gnus (also known as wildebeests), hartebeests, and blesboks; Antilopinae, including gazelles, black bucks, dik-diks, klipspringers, steenboks, saigas, and chirus; Boselaphinae, including the nilgai and four-horned antelopes; Cephalophinae, including the duikers; Hippotraginae, including the oryx and addax; Peleinae, including the rheboks; Reduncinae, including the reedbucks and waterbucks; and Tragelaphinae, including the kudu, sitatunga, bushbuck, bongo, and eland.

See also Artiodactyl; Buffalo.