Ungulate facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Ungulate |
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| Donkey, Equus africanus | |
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| Spanish ibex (Capra pyrenaica) | |
Scientific classification  |
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| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Clade: | Ferungulata |
| Clade: | Ungulata Linnaeus, 1766 |
| Orders and Clades | |
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Ungulates (meaning roughly "hoofed animal") are several groups of mammals. Most of them use the tips of their toes, usually as hooves, to support their body weight while moving.
As a descriptive term, "ungulate" normally excludes cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises), because they do not have most of the typical morphological characteristics of ungulates. However, recent discoveries show that the Cetacea were descended from early artiodactyls.
Ungulates are typically herbivorous and many use specialised gut flora to digest cellulose. Some modern species, such as pigs, are omnivorous. Some prehistoric species, such as the Mesonychia, were carnivorous.
Ungulates include odd-toed ungulates such as horses, rhinoceroses and tapirs, and even-toed ungulates such as cattle, pigs, giraffes, camels, sheep, deer, and hippopotamuses. Cetaceans are also even-toed ungulates although they do not have hooves.
Related pages
Images for kids
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Uintatherium anceps, a dinoceratan
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Restoration of Eurohippus parvulus, a mid- to late Eocene equid of Europe (Natural History Museum, Berlin)
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Arctocyon an arctocyonid
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Skeleton of Ambulocetus natans, a stem whale
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Pacific white-sided dolphin skeleton (missing pelvic bones), on exhibit at The Museum of Osteology, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
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Velvet covers a growing antler and provides it with blood, supplying oxygen and nutrients.
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Cloven hooves of Roe Deer (Capreolus capreolus), with dew claws
See also
In Spanish: Ungulata para niños
