Antilocapra Americana

Title

Antilocapra Americana

Artist

Jon Burch Photography

Medium

Photograph - Digital Capture & Enhancement

Description

An antelope is a member of a number of even-toed ungulate species indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelopes comprise a wastebasket taxon within the family Bovidae, encompassing those Old World species that are not cattle, sheep, buffalo, bison, or goats; even so, antelope are generally more deer-like than other bovids. A group of antelope is called a herd.

Though not an antelope, it is often known colloquially in North America as the American antelope, prong buck, pronghorn antelope, prairie 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.

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 scrutinized 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.

The Wyoming antelope look like they were ready to play. Wonder where the deer are...?

Some digital effects were applied to this original image after the photograph was made. No electrons were harmed during the transition. Ordered images will not contain the FAA watermark.

Image copyright 2019 by Jon Burch Photography.

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August 13th, 2019

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