Its color is tan to reddish brown. Its cheeks, belly, chest, rump and the insides of its legs are white. Males have a wide black mask running from their eyes to their nose, black parches on their neck and pronged black horns. The horns of the male are shaped like a lyre, curving in towards each other.
The pronghorn possesses horns, not antlers and is the only animal with branched horns and the only animal that each year sheds its horns.
The outer sheath falls off in the autumn and grows back every summer. The pronghorn is native to North America and is distributed throughout the treeless deserts, plains and basins of western North America, across the southern prairie provinces in Canada, south into the west of the United States and to the north of Mexico.
Pronghorns are typically found in grassland, chaparral, sage scrub and desert. The southern part of their range consists mostly of open prairies and arid grasslands. This highly-strung animal is active day and night, alternating snatches of sleep with focused feeding. Pronghorns are opportunistic and selective foragers. The timing, length, and seasonal movement patterns vary regionally. Pronghorns come together in mixed-gender herds in winter. The herds break up in early spring and young males form bachelor groups, females join a group of females, and adult males live on their own.
Females form dominance hierarchies which including circular relationships. Dominant females will aggressively displace other females at feeding sites. Pronghorns travel up to km away from winter ranges to get away from very deep snow. In summer, pronghorns graze on grasses, cactus and forbs. In winter, they eat sagebrush and other plants that are available.
Costa's Hummingbird. Gila Woodpecker. Gilded Flicker. Lucy's Warbler. Vermilion Flycatcher. Yellow-Headed Blackbird. Barrel Cactus. Beavertail Cactus. Chain Fruit Cholla. Desert Night Blooming Cereus Cactus. Fishhook Cactus. Organ Pipe Cactus. Prickly Pear Cactus. Saguaro Cactus. Teddy-bear or Jumping Cholla Cactus. American Snout Butterfly. Buck Moth. Bumble Bee. Common Desert Centipede. Desert Millipede. Giant Desert Centipede.
Harvester Ant. Kissing Bug. Maricopa Harvester Ant. Palo Verde Root Borer. Paper Wasp. Pinacate Beetle. Pipevine Swallowtail. Queen Butterfly. Short-Horned Grasshopper. Walking Sticks. We're on the ground in seven regions across the country, collaborating with 52 state and territory affiliates to reverse the crisis and ensure wildlife thrive.
Uniting all Americans to ensure wildlife thrive in a rapidly changing world. Inspire a lifelong connection with wildlife and wild places through our children's publications, products, and activities. In 4 seconds , you will be redirected to nwfactionfund. The National Wildlife Federation. Pronghorn Antilocapra americana Status: Not Listed. Classification: Mammal.
Range Pronghorn are found only in North America. Diet Pronghorn are herbivores. Behavior Pronghorn depend on their strong vision to communicate. Life History Pronghorn breed in late summer or fall depending on their location—those in the southern part of the range tend to breed earlier. Conservation Threats to pronghorn include habitat loss , human-wildlife conflicts , and overexploitation due to historic hunting, which greatly reduced the population size.
Fun Fact Pronghorn are the second fastest land mammal in the world. Cheetahs are the fastest. Donate Today. Sign a Petition. Donate Monthly. Nearby Events. All trick, no treat? The high price of harvesting cocoa for chocolate Read More. Read More. They sleep frequently; however, the sleeping periods are short.
They are good swimmers. They spend most of their time feeding and resting. The herbivorous pronghorns spend 40 to 60 percent of time feeding.
They mainly eat herbs, forbs, cactus, and desert grasses like bunchgrass, bluegrass, ricegrass, squirreltail and bottlebrush. Like many other ungulates and bovine species, they often ruminate chew the cud, or semi-digested food.
During winter, these creatures consume shrubs like shrubs sagebrush, rabbitbrush, bitterbrush, and other plants that are available. The breeding season of the pronghorn is mid-September. The females use several strategies to direct mating choice. They visit few harem-holding males and stay there for a few days until it returns back for mating to a male they visited within a week of estrus.
The females sometimes use sampling behavior as well until estrus and eventually escape from the male. This incites chasing, aggressive behavior and fights between males, which the female waits and watches and finally ends in mating with the winner. A month prior to the estrus, a female would move to an isolated place belonging to a single male, where it spends time until mating. During mating, the males approach the females with a high-pitch whining sound.
This gives a sexual indication to the female, who would raise its tail up and stand. With this, the male approaches moving its head from side to side with a low sucking sound before it mounts the female. The actual act of copulation is usually short, with a single forceful pelvic thrust. The gestation period of the pronghorn is to days, after which, the female gives birth to 1 or mostly 2 babies.
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