Pronghorn
Description:
They are smaller than the white-tailed deer or about the size of a goat. The mature buck weighs from 100 to 130 pounds, and the female from 75 to 100 pounds. The male develops large pronged horns which average about 12 inches and are shed each year. They stand about 3 ft. at the shoulders. The coat is light brown with two white throat stripes, a white rump, and white under parts. Both sexes have horns. The male develops large pronged horns which average about 12 inches and are shed each year.
Habitat:
The Pronghorn antelope, sometimes referred to as the prairie ghost, is found only on America's Great Plains in the Western United States, including Colorado and New Mexico. They live in small bands on the open plains.
Diet:
Chiefly browsers, they feed on shrubs such as sagebrush, but also eat grass. Pronghorns also consume poisonous and injurious plants, including larkspur, loco weeds, rubber weed, rayless goldenrod, cockleburs, needle-and-thread grass, yucca, snakeweed, Russian thistle and saltbush. For this reason, wise range managers encourage pronghorns to use their rangeland to discourage the increase of undesirable plant species.
Interesting Facts:
The pronghorn is extremely fast, with a top speed of about 60 miles per hour, and can easily outrun any other animal that tries to catch it. An antelope has large eyes that protrude from the side of its head and provide wide-angle vision believed to be about the same as that of a man looking through 8-power binoculars. By the beginning of the twentieth century over hunting nearly exterminated the pronghorn, but because they are now protected on reservations they have made a strong recovery. Due to its highly developed social nature, they are generally found in small family groups to large wintering herds. The antelope’s unique ability to erect patches of its bristle-like stiff body hair allows it to release body heat in the hot summer, while the hollow air-filled hair insulates it against sub-zero temperatures in winter. It also uses the erectile hair patches on its rump to signal to the herd the possibility of approaching danger. There seem to be sentinels within the herd that stand guard when the group feeds or rests.
