from it, and sheep and goats were born from it — The Rg Veda, Book 10, ca 1200 BCE …I am come down to deliver [my people] out of the hands of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey… — God to Moses on Mount Horeb (Exodus 3:8) Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese? — Job to God (Job 10:10) The Rise of the Ruminants All mammals produce milk for their young, but only a closely related handful have been exploited by humans Cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goats, camels, yaks: these suppliers of plenty were created by a scarcity of food Around 30 million years ago, the earth’s warm, moist climate became seasonally arid This shift favored plants that could grow quickly and produce seeds to survive the dry period, and caused a great expansion of grasslands, which in the dry seasons became a sea of desiccated, fibrous stalks and leaves So began the gradual decline of the horses and the expansion of the deer family, the ruminants, which evolved the ability to survive on dry grass Cattle, sheep, goats, and their relatives are all ruminants The key to the rise of the ruminants is their highly specialized, multichamber stomach, which accounts for a fifth of their body weight and houses trillions of fiber-digesting microbes, most of them in the first chamber, or rumen Their unique plumbing, together with the habit of regurgitating and rechewing partly digested food, allows ruminants to extract nourishment from high-fiber, poorquality plant material Ruminants produce ... period, and caused a great expansion of grasslands, which in the dry seasons became a sea of desiccated, fibrous stalks and leaves So began the gradual decline of the horses and the expansion of the deer family, the ruminants, which evolved the ability to... which accounts for a fifth of their body weight and houses trillions of fiber-digesting microbes, most of them in the first chamber, or rumen Their unique plumbing, together with the habit of regurgitating and rechewing... the expansion of the deer family, the ruminants, which evolved the ability to survive on dry grass Cattle, sheep, goats, and their relatives are all ruminants The key to the rise of the ruminants is their highly specialized, multichamber stomach,