Sheep (Ovis aries) are quadrupedal, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Although the name "sheep" applies to many species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to Ovis aries. Numbering a little over one billion, domestic sheep are also the most numerous species of sheep.
Sheep are most likely descended from the wild mouflon of Europe and Asia. One of the earliest animals to be domesticated for agricultural purposes, sheep are raised for fleece, meat (lamb, hogget or mutton) and milk. A sheep's wool is the most widely used animal fiber, and is usually harvested by shearing. Ovine meat is called lamb when from younger animals and mutton when from older ones. Sheep continue to be important for wool and meat today, and are also occasionally raised for pelts, as dairy animals, or as model organisms for science.
Sheep husbandry is practised throughout the majority of the inhabited world, and has been fundamental to many civilizations. In the modern era, Australia, New Zealand, the southern and central South American nations, and the British Isles are most closely associated with sheep production.[citation needed]
The Sheep is a character, created by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll. It appeared in Dodgson's book, Through the Looking-Glass, the sequel to his book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
The Sheep is first mentioned in the fifth chapter of Through the Looking-Glass, "Wool and Water". The White Queen is talking to Alice, when she suddenly starts "baa-ing" and then seems to 'wrap herself in wool'. Alice figures out she is in a shop, and that The White Queen has turned into a sheep. The Sheep sits in her chair knitting as Alice looks around the shop. She gives Alice a pair of her knitting needles, and asks her if she can row. As Alice begins to answer, she realizes that they are in a little boat, and that the needles have turned into oars. As they glide along the water, the Sheep repeatedly shouts out "Feather," and tells Alice that they will be catching crabs. Alice's attention is then put onto some scented rushes growing in the water. She tries picking them, but they are only 'dream rushes' and melt away. She then quickly catches a crab, which she actually didn't see, and they are all suddenly in the shop again. Alice buys an egg from the Sheep (that ends up turning into Humpty Dumpty) and the two part ways.
In the English language, black sheep is an idiom used to describe an odd or disreputable member of a group, especially within a family. The term has typically been given negative implications, implying waywardness. It derived from the atypical and unwanted presence of other black individuals in flocks of white sheep.
In psychology, the black sheep effect refers to the tendency of group members to judge likeable ingroup members more positively and deviant ingroup member more negatively than comparable outgroup members.
The term originated from the occasional black sheep which are born into a flock of white sheep due to a genetic process of recessive traits. Black wool was considered commercially undesirable because it could not be dyed. In 18th and 19th century England, the black color of the sheep was seen as the mark of the devil. In modern usage, the expression has lost some of its negative connotations, though the term is usually given to the member of a group who has certain characteristics or lack thereof deemed undesirable by that group.