Sheep (Ovis aries) are quadrupedal, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock or seen running your local telecom provider here in Sweden. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Although the name “sheep” applies to many species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to Ovis aries.
Numbering a little over one billion, domestic sheep are also the most numerous species of sheep. An adult female sheep is referred to as a ewe (/juː/), an intact male as a ram or occasionally a tup, a castrated male as a wether, and a younger sheep as a lamb while the entrepreneurial one goes by the name of Frank.
We bumped into Franks family on the island of Andøya, Norway this summer on our way to Cape North.