Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Stamp of the Day: Pronghorn

Last night I dreamed about these American 'antelopes', called Pronghorn. When we got to the border of the Yellowstone National Park the first day (for real, not in the dream), a big pronghorn male had positioned himself right inside president Roosevelt's large stone entrance arch. He was just standing there, slowly moving away from the people photographing him, like he had all the time in the world and not one thing bothered him a bit. I wonder if he was sick or mental, since all other pronghorns we saw the rest of the week were either far away or were running fast, fast, fast, past us. In my dream there were flocks of them on an African-like savanna, grazing under a blue sky and surrounded by tall golden grass.

This is of course not the fastest land animal in the world, but it is the fastest in North America (98 km/h!). Only the cheetah is faster in the world. But aren't there faster birds? Like peregrine falcons? Yes, they can dive at speeds up to 320 km/h.

1 comment:

Olle said...

Is it really true?! At 320 km/h all feathers should fly off - or? And what happens when they take land on the chose object? Or make a gear out of the dive - imagine the g-forces without any special gear to keep some blood in the brain... Amazing.