Fat-tailed sheep

[2] Fat-tailed sheep are well adapted to life in arid landscapes,[5] the fat providing a food reserve for "combatting harsh desert conditions".

[8] Another early reference is found in the Bible (Exodus 29:22 and Leviticus 3:9), where a sacrificial offering is described which includes the tail fat (called Alyá, Hebrew: אַלְיָה) of sheep.

Mesopotamian records provide a wealth of information about fat-tailed sheep (udu gukkal[9] or udu-gug-gal[10]); they produced the highest-quality wool and were kept in large numbers.

Under Soviet rule Uzbekistan became a huge grower of cotton, and consequently cottonseed oil took over as the major fat used in cooking; still, dumba continues to play an important role in the Uzbek imagination and folklore.

[13] It is called لية (leeyeh, leyyah, or layeh) in Arabic, zaaka in Algeria, kuyruk yağı in Turkish, and دنبه (donbe or dombe or dumba) in Iran and Pakistan.

Fat-tailed sheep at a livestock market in Kashgar , China
A shepherd with fat-tailed sheep on a mountainside in Afghanistan
Vendor using fat-tailed sheep meat to prepare chuan , in Xinjiang Province, China
Tail fat