Pronghorn Antelope
by Walter Colvin
Title
Pronghorn Antelope
Artist
Walter Colvin
Medium
Digital Art - Digital Art Fine Painting
Description
Digital fine art painting of pronghorn antelope, Painted with photoshop.
The pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) is a species of artiodactyl mammal indigenous to interior western and central North America. Though not an antelope, it is often known colloquially in North America as the American antelope, prong buck, pronghorn antelope, or simply antelope because it closely resembles the true antelopes of the Old World and fills a similar ecological niche due to parallel evolution.
It is the only surviving member of the family Antilocapridae.During the Pleistocene period, about 12 antilocaprid species existed in North America. Three other genera (Capromeryx, Stockoceros and Tetrameryx) existed when humans entered North America but are now extinct.
As a member of the superfamily Giraffoidea, the pronghorn's closest living relatives are the giraffes and okapi. The Giraffoidea are in turn members of the infraorder Pecora, making pronghorns more distant relatives of the Cervidae (deer) and Bovidae (cattle, goats, sheep, antelopes, and gazelles), among others.
The scientific name of the pronghorn is Antilocapra americana. The pronghorn is the sole extant member of the family Antilocapridae. This species was first described by American ornithologist George Ord in 1815. The pronghorn were first seen and described by Spanish explorers in the 16th century, but were not formally recorded or scrutinised till the 1804�1806 expedition by Captain Meriwether Lewis and Second Lieutenant William Clark. The expedition, which aimed to unravel water routes in the continent for commercial purposes, led to the discovery or formal recognition of a variety of flora and fauna of North America. Following the discovery of a few subspecies of the sharp-tailed grouse, Lewis and Clark came across the pronghorn near the mouth of the Niobrara River, in present-day Nebraska. Utal.
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May 10th, 2019
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