A PRAIRIE GOAT COMPANION

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Unique pronghorn horn characteristic No. 2: The pronghorn is the only ungulate to grow headgear that's classified as horn but which is deciduous—sort of. Each year, between late October and early December, pronghorn bucks shed the outer sheaths of their horns while retaining the slender inner cores, around which new sheaths have already begun to form. (In fact, the outward and upward pressure exerted by the growing sheaths helps to loosen the old sheaths.)

Unique pronghorn horh characteristic No. 3: hairy horns. On my desk before me now I have the pronghorn horn from my collection (a specimen I obtained, to my wife's disgust, by carving it from the crushed skull of a truckstruck buck alongside a remote Western byway several years ago). An inspection of the base of the horn reveals three distinct layers in cross section. The core, as with all horn, is porous bone marrow. Around this core is wrapped a layer of tough, white, cartilaginous tissue. The third, or outer layer looks a lot like thick hairs stuck together with black glue and hardened. Of course, as with most things in life, there's more to it than meets the eye.

The exterior of the horn I have here has a rough, barklike texture except at the tip, which the buck had polished smooth before his untimely demise. Under a magnifying glass, individual, unfused blond hairs can be seen protruding from the hardened black surface, more so near the base, making for, in appearance at least, a hirsute horn. What doesn't meet the eye is the fact that the bulk of the hairy-looking sheath is composed, not of fused hair, but of cornified, or hardened, tissue called epithelium.

The pronghorn is unique in more than its horns. Giving the lie to its scientific name,

Antilocapra americana —literally, "American antelope-goat"—the pronghorn in fact is no antelope at all, nor a goat (though it is commonly called a prairie goat by Westerners), but a unique, exclusively American animal (length of residency: 20 million years) with no close relatives of any sort anywhere on earth. Further, it's the sole genus in its scientific family, Antilocapridae, and the sole living species in its genus. (As opposed, say, to the deer family, Cervidae, which comprises deer, elk, caribou and moose in North America alone.)

An exceptionally large pronghorn buck might weigh as much as 140 pounds, but the average is closer to 110; does run about 10% lighter. The typical pronghorn stands to around 36 inches at the shoulders and is perhaps 52 inches in length. The backs and upper sides of adults are tan to russet, accented with thick dark manes, black facial markings (on bucks only) and white belly, rump and throat bands. The white rump is part of yet another unique attribute of the pronghorn.

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