Ungulate
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.
| Ungulata Temporal range: Possible Upper Cretaceous–Present
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|---|---|
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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 |
| Clade: | Ferungulata |
| Clade: | Ungulata Linnaeus, 1766 |
| Orders and Clades | |
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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.[3]
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.
Ungulate Media
Grant's Zebras in the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania.
Male Diceros bicornis (Black rhinoceros or Hook-lipped rhinoceros) at the Saint Louis Zoological Park in Missouri
Elaphurus davidianus in Kadzidłowo
Hippopotamus amphibius
Adult blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) from the eastern Pacific Ocean.
A common dolphin. Photo by NOAA. Source: [1]*en:Category:Cetacea images*Source: [2] Dolpins are not endangered.Their brain is bigger than the monkey.
Equus quagga (white background)
- Tapirwhitebackground
Plate XV. *1. Rhinoceros *2. African Elephant
Cladogram of Cetacea within Artiodactyla (Camelus bactrianus)
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References
- ↑ Welker, F. (2015). "Ancient proteins resolve the evolutionary history of Darwin's South American ungulates" (PDF). Nature. 522 (7554): 81–84. Bibcode:2015Natur.522...81W. doi:10.1038/nature14249. PMID 25799987. S2CID 4467386.
- ↑ Burger, Benjamin J. 2015. The systematic position of the sabre-toothed and horned giants of the eocene: the Uintatheres (order Dinocerata). Utah State University, Uintah Basin Campus, Vernal, UT, USA 84078, SVP 2015.
- ↑ Ursing B.M.; Arnason U. (1998). "Analyses of mitochondrial genomes strongly support a hippopotamus-whale clade". Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 265 (1412): 2251–5. doi:10.1098/rspb.1998.0567. PMC 1689531. PMID 9881471.