Re: A question about pronghorn(Antilocapra americana)

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

David Marjanovic (david.marjanovic@gmx.at) wrote:

<- When there are no other browsers, hypsodont grazers will happily return to 
browsing. They don't have a reason not to.>

  To clarify something that hasn't been raised:

  Most antelopes, if not all living antelopes, are hypsodont, as are cervoids.
Very few of these animals graze, but their dentition does allow them to take
hardier foods than are otherwise available to grazers. However, the relative
modifications of diet to habitat or lack of competition has not proferred
cattle into browsing ecomorphs, though they do browse on occassion. They are,
for all intents and purposes, obligate grazers. Bovoids are for the most part
completely adapted into grazing, while equids/rhinoceratoids and cervoids
graze/browse and browse, respectively.

  Cheers,

Jaime A. Headden
http://bitestuff.blogspot.com/

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)

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