In most people's minds, animals in mating season often involve males dueling it out while females watch, assessing who is more attractive.

However, in North America, there's a magical species that has a different way of determining mates - through a fight to establish "a male and female".

What is this strange operation? Let's take a closer look at this amazing species.

In the distant North American continent, there is a very peculiar species known as the bighorn sheep. As the name implies, the horns of the bighorn sheep are particularly huge, coiled on either side of the head, giving them a tall and powerful appearance. They live year-round in highlands, mountains, and some hilly areas, and are adept at walking over rocky terrain.

Bighorn sheep usually live in small groups of more than a dozen, led by one or a few adult males, with females or juveniles following. The adult males often choose to rest on high and prominent rocks with a wide field of vision, using their keen sense of vision to detect approaching danger in the distance and warn the herd, which will then flee along steep rocks at great speed.

The bighorn sheep, with its huge horns and imposing body, is native to North America and has seven different subspecies, five of which live in desert areas. The mountain bighorn sheep is the largest and most numerous of these seven species, making it home in remote wilderness areas.

Mountain bighorn sheep are more agile than other types of sheep, and their rams are more aggressive during the rutting season when the sound of their head-butting echoes throughout the mountains.

Male bighorn sheep have large, spiral-shaped horns, while females have shorter or missing horns.

There are six different species, including Ovis ammon, which is distributed in central Asia and found in northwest China and is a Grade II protected animal. Ovis aries are widely raised around the world as wool-producing livestock, and Ovis canadensis is distributed in North America, inhabiting desert wastelands or mountainous areas. Other species such as Ovis dalli, Ovis nivicola, and Ovis vignei are also found in North America.

Because of their large and majestic horns, bighorn sheep are often hunted for ornamentation and can be used to crossbreed with domestic animals. They have been classified as protected animals in China.

Bighorn sheep are named after the large curved horns of the ram. Ewes also have horns, but they are much shorter and only slightly curved. Their coloration includes light brown, gray, and coffee, with white rumps and legs.

Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep can weigh up to 90 kg for females and occasionally over 135 kg for males, while Sierras are much smaller, usually weighing only 63 kg for females and about 90 kg for males. The horns of rams can weigh up to 14 kg, which is equivalent to the weight of the other parts of their skeletal system.

Bighorn sheep feed on grasses and shrubs and are adept at climbing steep mountain slopes to escape their natural enemies, which include wolves, coyotes, golden eagles, and cougars. They cannot usually be tamed.

The Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep is the provincial animal of Alberta, Canada, and is also the state animal of Colorado, appearing on the Colorado Department of Wildlife Conservation logo. Bighorn sheep are increasingly becoming an important ecotourism resource in national parks across North America.