Inspection committee

A great shot Sig and many thanks for posting to Fur, Fin and Feather.

Majestic capture!

Admired in:
www.ipernity.com/group/tolerance

Beautiful wildlife image.
Have a nice weekend.

Interesting! Are true antelopes and cows as closely as you suggest? I will have to investigate as I've never thought about it before, except so far as to assume that deer and antelope were more closely related to each other than either would be to a cow!

It's in the headgear! True deer have antlers without a bony core that are shed annually, and they're found only on the males. Both true antelope and bovines have horns that are keratin-sheathed but with a bony core, and the keratin sheath is not shed routinely. In addition, both sexes have horns, the females' being much smaller. In pronghorns, the keratin sheath is shed (IIRC) annually, just as in deer, but both sexes have horns.

Thanks, everyone! It's nice they've made such a comeback after having been hunted nearly to extinction by the early 20th century.

So the one's I photographed (with much less camera capability) 15 years ago in about the same area are probably pronghorns? www.flickr.com/photos/donbrr/3699876001

Definitely pronghorns! The coloring is distinctive, as is the horn shape. One of those "Amazing Wildlife Facts" you hear is that they can make the hairs on the white rump stand up so as to catch the sun, evidently as a warning that a predator is in the vicinity.

And they're (rightly) assuming that we're predators.

As a followup, I've commented elsewhere that pronghorns have made an astonishing comeback since being hunted nearly to extinction around the turn of the last century. It's estimated (IIRC) that only ~14K individuals were left in the early 20th century, down from a pre-Columbian population of millions. When I was a kid, we never used to see them in these Great Basin valleys. The Nevada Dept. of Wildlife, and I'm sure other states', has had a program for a number of years of reintroducing pronghorns into their historic range where they'd died out, and it seems to have worked. Sometimes there _is_ progress!

And on checking with that Fount of Knowledge Wikipedia:

True antelope, along with cattle, goats, and sheep, all belong to the family Bovidae. Deer belong to Cervidae, and pronghorns are the last surviving representatives of Antilocapridae. All these animals belong to infraorder Pecora in the ruminants, along with another couple of small families (Giraffidae, giraffes & okapis) and musk deer (Moschidae). In fact, pronghorns are more closely (if still distantly) related to giraffes & okapis than to true antelope.

There are no true native antelope in North America, but some other bovids (bison "buffalo," bighorn sheep, and the Rocky Mountain goat) are native. The Rocky Mountain goat, however, is in its own genus (Oreamnos), different from Old World goats (Capra).

I'm surprised somewhat by the number. I took Amtrak from SF to Chicago way back in the late 70's and it seemed that we passed very many pronghorns across central Nevada then.

I've seen them relatively often across central Nevada -- below is a link (on that other site) to a photo near Round Mountain where I labeled them antelopes (I should change that): www.flickr.com/photos/donbrr/6719186427

Apparently the establishment of the Charles Sheldon Antelope Refuge in far northern Nevada, greatly enlarged by FDR in the height of the Depression, was a key factor. David Goulart used to post lots of pix from there. The Thousand Creek Gorge is on the eastern side:
www.ipernity.com/doc/289859/47565872

I didn't realize that protected area up there was that old, I thought it more recent.

Good to see a strong recovery of the species Steve.

Sometimes things go right!

Thanks for all that very interesting info, Steve which, if I did once know have long forgotten!

And just to add, your comments about silver surfers group description details all being there on the front page ... yes. But only AFTER you decide to join. Thats an admin flaw because in order to decide what groups to join you need to see descriptions of the group and things like max photos allowed, etc BEFORE that point!
Anyway ... yes. I joined! (Despite thinking that I'm really only 36 years old!)

Now _that_ is a flaw! I should point it out to the Ipernity software folks.

And welcome!

WOWWW, such a nice meeting !! Terrific capture !!!!!!!!!

Thanks, Marie-claire!

It's a wonderful picture.