Even though it resembles an antelope and fills approximately the same ecological niche in North America as antelopes do in the Old World, the pronghorn is not a true antelope. Pronghorns and the true antelope experienced separate, parallel evolutions.

Pronghorns prefer wide open terrain, and are the fastest land mammals in the Western Hemisphere. They can run up to 55 miles per hour in short spurts. Cheetahs are the only faster land animal. Pronghorns have almost 360-degree vision, can spot movement 4 miles away, and are excellent swimmers. All these remarkable characteristics help them elude predators.

By the early 19th century, the total pronghorn population in the United States had been hunted from 35 million down to less than 13,000. On December 31, 1936, Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order to create a 549,000-acre preserve in Nevada for pronghorn recovery. 3 of the North American subspecies are still considered to be in danger of extinction.