The gayal (Bos frontalis), also known as the Drung ox[1] or mithun, is a large domestic cattle distributed in Northeast India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and in Yunnan, China.

[4] Phylogenetic analysis corroborates the taxonomic assessment that the gayal is an independent Bos species originating matrilineally from gaur, zebu and cattle.

[citation needed] There are two major hypotheses on the origin of the gayal: In 2020, Ranganathan Kamalakkannan et Al. found "phylogenetic analysis using complete mitochondrial genome sequences unambiguously suggested that gaur is the maternal ancestor of domestic mithun.

In India, semi-domesticated gayals are kept by several ethnic groups living in the hills of Tripura, Mizoram, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland.

[6] In northern Burma, they occur in the Kachin State, and in adjacent Yunnan are found only in the Trung (Chinese: 独龙河) and Salween River basins.

Terms for ‘mithun’ in other languages of Arunachal Pradesh are typically cognate with Aka fu (e.g. Miji ʃu, Koro sù, Puroik ʧa and Proto-Tani *ɕo), suggesting that this is probably not a case of semantic shift from a wild species.

Gayal are not milked or put to work but given supplementary care while grazing in the woods, until they are ritually slaughtered or killed for local consumption.