Bos frontalis Lambert 1804

Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Artiodactyla, Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 1, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 637-722 : 690

Bos frontalis Lambert 1804

Bos frontalis Lambert 1804 , Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond., 7: 57.

Type Locality: Native "of the hills to the north-east and east of the Company's province of Chittagong in Bengal, inhabiting that range of hills which separate it from the country of Arracan" ( Bangladesh, NE Chittagong).

Vernacular Names: Gaur.

Subspecies: :

Subspecies Bos frontalis subsp. frontalis Lambert 1804

Subspecies Bos frontalis subsp. laosiensis Heude 1901

Subspecies Bos frontalis subsp. gaurus C. H. Smith 1827

Subspecies Bos frontalis subsp. sinhaleyus Deraniyagala 1951

Distribution: Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, China (S Tibet and Yunnan), India, Laos, Malaysia (peninsular Malaya), Nepal, Sri Lanka (extinct), Thailand, and S Vietnam.

Conservation: CITES – Appendix I as B. gaurus (excluding domesticated form); U.S. ESA – Endangered as B. gaurus ; IUCN – Vulnerable.

Discussion: The name frontalis was based on a Gyall or Gayal (also known as Mithan). These are wild animals recurrently taken into captivity and hence categorised as feral or domestic. Gayal derive from wild Gaur and differ in proportions but are uniform and tend to breed true; interbreeding with domestic cattle appears to be relatively recent ( Simoons, 1984). Includes gaurus ; but see Corbet and Hill (1991:130). Formerly placed in Bibos . Gentry et al. (1996) proposed that majority usage be confirmed by adoption of Bos gaurus as the name for the wild taxon of Gaur and asked the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature to use its plenary powers to rule that the name for this wild species is not invalid by virtue of being antedated by the name based on the domestic form. A ruling has now been made in their favour ( International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, 2003 a). It may still be valid for those who consider B. gaurus and B. frontalis to be conspecific to employ the senior name for the name of the species (see Bock, 1997). Gayal possibly originated from the form laosiensis, hence frontalis could be a synonym of laosiensis. Nearly all authors have termed the Gaur B. gaurus rather than B. frontalis (or B. f. gaurus ). Provisionally gaurus and laosiensis are here listed as subspecies of frontalis . Gaur that survived into historic times on Sri Lanka were named from fossil material as † sinhaleyus (Deraniyagala, 1951).