AnimalsCattle are kept around the world for milk, meat and work. A cow is a ruminant: it swallows grass, brings it back up as cud and chews it again, and its stomach has four chambers. The humped zebu cattle of India are well suited to heat.
Quick facts
- Scientific name
- Bos taurus
- Group
- Mammals
- Diet
- Herbivore (eats plants)
- Lives in
- Worldwide, with people
- Habitat
- Farms and pasture
- A young one is called
- calf
- A group is called
- herd
- Conservation status
- Domestic animal
How it is classified
Scientists sort living things into groups within groups. Reading down, each step is a smaller group, ending with the species itself.
- Kingdom Animalia
- Phylum Chordata
- Class Mammalia
- Order Artiodactyla
- Family Bovidae
- Genus Bos
- Species Bos taurus
Other members of the family Bovidae on this site: blackbuck, gaur, goat, nilgai, sheep, water buffalo, yak.
More distant relatives in the order Artiodactyla: Bactrian camel, chital, dromedary camel, giraffe, hippopotamus, moose, pig, reindeer, sambar, wild boar.
Classification follows the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Other reference works arrange some groups differently. How classification works.
Is it in danger?
The cow is a domestic animal, kept and bred by people. Domestic animals are not assessed for the Red List of threatened species.