#ruminantia

Ruminantia. This suborder of even-toed ungulates gets nutrients from plant material by fermenting it in a specialised stomach. It includes cattle, yak, deer, sheep, goats, giraffes, and antelopes.

Whippomorpha. This suborder of even-toed ungulates have for the most part lost their toes, becoming dolphins and whales. It also includes hippos.

We've come to the last of the Mammalia Families. we present Artiodactyla aka Even Toed Ungulates. be them Lamas, Swine, Grazing Critters, Hippos and Whales.

Members Include

Tylopoda: Drought The Dromedary Camel, Bounty The Bactrian Camel, Flourish The Llama & Tweedy The Alpaca

Suina: Hammy The Pig, Gorge The Boar, Tusk The Babirusa & Verruca The Warthog

Ruminantia: Oak The Moose, Torrent The Caribou, Draoi The Elk, Plow The Pronghorn, Lofty The Giraffe, Mugi The Okapi, Stampede The Wildebeest, Savanna The Gazelle, Mattock The Oryx, Usuu The Dik-Dik, Barazona The Bull, Custard The Cow, Armament The Buffalo, Dower The Yak, Rough-Field The Bison, Yukon The Muskox. Impact The Bighorn Sheep, Fleece The Sheep, Lanche The Mountain Goat & Parity The Goat

Hippopotamidae: Dona-Imma The Hippo & Bijou The Pygmy Hippo

Shiras moose (Alces alces shirasi)

Leptomeryx

Leptomeryx — вимерлий рід парнокопитних ссавців із родини лептомерицидів (Leptomerycidae) підряду жуйних (Ruminantia), які жили з середини еоцену до початку міоцену на території Північної Америки.

Повний текст на сайті "Вимерлий світ":

Saiga antelopes at the Stepnoi nature reserve in Liman district of Russia’s Astrakhan region. The site was created in 2000 especially for saiga antelopes

Photograph: Dmitry Rogulin/TASS/Getty Images

Island Weirdness #14 -- Hoplitomeryx

During the mid-Miocene, about 15 million years ago, a region of central and southeast Italy around Gargano and Scontrone was cut off from the mainland by rising sea levels.

For the next 7-10 million years this island (or perhaps a cluster of islands) was left isolated, and an unusual ecosystem developed known as the “Mikrotia fauna”. With the island starting off lacking large predators, small herbivorous animals like rodents, pikas, and waterfowl became huge -- and then small predators like gymnures and carnivorous birds also grew to keep up with the increasing size of their prey.

One of the strangest residents of the island(s) was Hoplitomeryx, an early type of ruminant that resembled a deer or pronghorn. Nicknamed the “prongdeer”, it had a total of five horns on its head and large protruding fangs similar to some modern deer.

Multiple species of Hoplitomeryx have been identified, representing four different size classes ranging from huge down to tiny insular dwarfs. The largest is estimated to have been similarly sized to modern moose, standing around 2m tall at the shoulder (6′6″), while the smallest would have been under 50cm (1′8″).

Each of these size classes was specialized for slightly different ecological niches, eating different types of vegetation to avoid directly competing with each other for the limited amount of food on the island.

Four-horned antelope (Tetracerus quadricornis)