Wild goat

The wild goat (Capra aegagrus) is a widespread species of goat, with a distribution ranging from Europe and Asia Minor to central Asia and the Middle East. It is the ancestor of the domestic goat.

The domestic goat (Capra aegagrus hircus) is a domesticated subspecies of the wild goat (Capra aegagrus).

Wild goats are animals of mountain habitats. They are very agile and hardy, able to climb on bare rock and survive on sparse vegetation. They can be distinguished from the genus Ovis, which includes sheep, by the presence of scent glands close to the feet, in the groin and in front of the eyes, and the absence of other facial glands, and by the presence of a beard in the males, and of hairless calluses on the knees of the forelegs.

The Rocky Mountain goat is in a separate genus, Oreamnos, and is not dealt with here.

A goat-antelope or caprid is any of the species of mostly medium-sized bovids that make up the subfamily Caprinae (as treated here), part of the Bovidae family of ruminants. The domestic sheep and domestic goat are both part of the goat-antelope group by its widest definition, but some taxonomists prefer to use the term only for members of the Caprinae that are not members of the tribe Caprini. The term "goat-antelope" does not mean that these animals are true antelopes: a true antelope is a bovid with a cervid-like or antilocaprid-like morphology.