Classroom lesson 路 Wildlife馃嚝馃嚪 France

The chamois

A goat-antelope that runs and jumps across cliffs

A wild chamois standing on a mountainside

Photo 路 Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

A chamois (say it 'sham-WAH') is a mountain animal that looks a little like a goat and a little like an antelope. It lives high up in the Alps and the Pyrenees - sometimes higher than where the trees can grow. Both males and females have neat little hooked horns.

Tell me more

Chamois are made for steep places. Their hooves have a soft rubber-like pad in the middle and a hard rim around the edge, so they can grip rocks the way a climbing shoe does. They can sprint across a near-vertical cliff that would terrify most humans.

Chamois are amazing jumpers. They can leap 2 metres straight up in the air and almost 6 metres across - about the length of a small car. They use these jumps to escape from predators like wolves, lynx and golden eagles.

In winter, chamois grow a thick dark-brown coat to keep warm in the snow. In summer, they swap it for a lighter, sandy-brown one that helps them blend in with the mountain rocks. The coat change is a bit like changing your jumper for a t-shirt when the weather warms up.

Chamois live in groups led by the females - mums, sisters and their kids (yes, baby chamois really are called 'kids'). The males usually live by themselves for most of the year. Newborn kids can stand up within minutes of being born and follow their mum across the cliffs by the next day.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01Why might it be useful for a mountain animal to change colour with the seasons?
  2. 02Chamois can jump nearly 6 metres - the length of a small car. What would you do with a jump like that?
  3. 03Chamois mums lead the groups. Can you think of other animals where the females are the leaders?
Try this

Classroom activity

Mark out 2 metres of vertical height on the school wall with chalk, and 6 metres along the ground. That is a chamois jump. Now have pupils try to mark their own personal jumps. How many of yours would equal a chamois?

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