Classroom lesson · Wildlife · 🇨🇭 Switzerland

The Alpine ibex - master cliff climber

A wild goat that can stand on a near-vertical wall

An Alpine ibex with huge curved horns standing on a rocky cliff

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

The Alpine ibex is a wild mountain goat that lives in the high Swiss Alps. It is famous around the world for one extraordinary trick: it can climb up almost vertical walls of rock. There is even a famous photograph of ibex standing on the steep wall of a dam in Italy, hundreds of metres above the water below.

Tell me more

An ibex's hooves are made for climbing. Each hoof is split into two parts that can spread apart to grip the rock. The bottom of the hoof is soft and rubbery, almost like a climbing shoe, so it sticks to slippery stone. The hard edges around the outside catch on tiny cracks.

Male ibex grow huge curved horns that can be over 1 metre long. They use them in friendly head-butting contests with other males in autumn. The horns keep growing for the ibex's whole life, getting one new ring every year - so you can count the rings to see how old an ibex is, a bit like counting the rings of a tree.

Ibex live high up the mountain, often above the snow line. In summer they eat grass and mountain flowers. In winter they come down a little to find food, but they prefer to stay where there are no wolves or bears. Their thick winter coat keeps them warm even when it is far below freezing.

The reason ibex sometimes climb dam walls is to lick salt off the stones. Their bodies need a little salt, and the rock at the dam has minerals that they can't find anywhere else. So they walk up the wall, lick the rock, and walk back down again - holding on with those clever split hooves.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01How do an ibex's split, rubbery hooves work like a climbing shoe? What other animals have feet that are designed for one special place?
  2. 02Why might male ibex have huge horns? What do they use them for?
  3. 03Animals do strange things to find what their bodies need - like climbing walls for salt. What do you do when your body tells you it needs something?
Try this

Classroom activity

Look at photos of ibex on the steep dam wall (search 'ibex Cingino dam'). Discuss as a class: what part of the rock are they actually standing on? Each child sketches one ibex on a cliff in their book, with an arrow pointing to its hoof.