[16] Pronghorns were first seen and described by Spanish explorers in the 16th century, but the species was not formally recorded or scrutinized until the expedition in 1804–06 by Captain Meriwether Lewis and Second Lieutenant William Clark.

[17] Following the discovery of a few subspecies of the sharp-tailed grouse, Lewis and Clark came across the pronghorn near the mouth of the Niobrara River, in present-day Nebraska.

... in my walk I killed a Buck Goat of this Countrey, about the height of the Grown Deer, its body Shorter the horns which is not very hard and forks 2⁄3 up one prong Short the other round & Sharp arched, and is immediately above its Eyes the Color is a light gray with black behind its ears down the neck, and its face white round its neck, its Sides and its rump round its tail which is Short & white; Verry actively made, has only a pair of hoofs to each foot, his brains on the back of his head, his Nostrals large, his eyes like a Sheep he is more like the Antilope or Gazelle of Africa than any other Species of Goat.The pronghorn was first officially described by American ornithologist George Ord in 1815.

[23] As in the Giraffidae, skin covers the bony cores, but in the pronghorn, it develops into a keratinous sheath which is shed and regrown annually.

Like many ungulates, these interdigital (hoof) glands of pronghorn contain chemical compounds that are known to have antimicrobial activity against soil and mammalian pathogens.

[26] The pronghorn is the fastest land mammal in the Western Hemisphere, being built for maximum predator evasion through running.

[31] Additionally, pronghorn hooves have two long, cushioned, pointed toes which help absorb shock when running at high speeds.

Male pronghorn tend to have a higher level of physical activity than females and apparently also have a greater blood volume relative to body size.

[7] When a pronghorn sees something that alarms it, the white hair on the rump flairs open and exposes two highly odoriferous glands that releases a compound described as having an odour "reminiscent of buttered popcorn."

[34] Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the pronghorn was particularly abundant in the regions west of the Mississippi River (still its primary range today).

The present-day range of the pronghorn is generally west of the Mississippi, extending from southern Saskatchewan and Alberta, Canada south into the western US, primarily in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

In extreme Northern California, pronghorn can be found in inland counties, ranging from neighboring Nevada and Oregon, as well as the central coastal grasslands, further south.

[35][36] In Mexico, the Sonoran pronghorn (A. a. sonoriensis) subspecies may be found from the state of Baja California Sur east through Sonora to San Luis Potosí, in north-central regions of the country, albeit in gradually diminishing populations.

Pronghorns prefer open, expansive terrain at elevations varying between 900 and 1,800 m (3,000 and 5,900 ft), with the densest populations in areas receiving around 250–400 mm (10–15+1⁄2 in) of rainfall per year.

[40] The migrating pronghorn start travel from the foothills of the Pioneer Mountains through Craters of the Moon National Monument to the Continental Divide.

Dr. Scott Bergen of the Wildlife Conservation Society says "This study shows that pronghorn are the true marathoners of the American West.

With these new findings, we can confirm that Idaho supports a major overland mammal migration - an increasingly rare phenomenon in the U.S. and worldwide.

[42][43] Jaguars (Panthera onca) also likely prey on pronghorns in their native range in the southwestern United States and in northern Mexico.

[20][16][21] In regions inhabited by the Plains Indians tribes, as well as the Northwest Plateau, pronghorn was hunted as a principal food source by the local people.

The Mandans' mode of hunting them is to form a large, strong pen or fold, from which a fence made of bushes gradually widens on each side.

The animals are surrounded by the hunters, and gently driven towards this pen, in which they imperceptibly find themselves enclosed, and are then at the mercy of the hunters.At the turn of the 20th century, members of the wildlife conservation group Boone and Crockett Club had determined that the extinction of the pronghorn was likely.

Although the club had begun their efforts to save the pronghorn in 1910 by funding and restocking the Wichita Game Refuge in Oklahoma, the National Bison Range in Montana, and the Wind Cave National Park, in South Dakota, most of the efforts were doomed since experience demonstrated that after initial increases the pronghorns would die off because of the fenced enclosures.

About 2900 acres of land were jointly purchased by the two organizations and subsequently turned over to the Biological Survey as a pronghorn refuge.

On June 20, 1929, United States President Herbert Hoover included the required public lands upon request of the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior after learning that the Boone and Crockett Club and the National Audubon Society were underwriting the private land buyout.

On December 31, 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order creating a 222,000-hectare (549,000-acre) tract; this was the true beginning for pronghorn recovery in North America.

[2] Some recent decline has occurred in a few localized populations,[20] due to bluetongue disease which is spread from sheep, but the overall trend has been positive.

No major range-wide threats exist, although localized declines are taking place, particularly to the Sonoran pronghorn, mainly as a result of livestock grazing, the construction of roads, fences, and other barriers that prevent access to historical habitat, illegal hunting, insufficient forage and water, and lack of recruitment.

[2] Populations of the Sonoran pronghorn in Arizona and Mexico are protected under the Endangered Species Act (since 1967), and a recovery plan for this subspecies has been prepared by U.S.