Animal and Plant of the Month
Animal of the Month
Plant of the Month

Pronghorn

Antilocapra americana

White Evening Star
Blazing Star
Stickleaf

Mentzelia nuda
Stickleaf Family
Loasa Family 
Loasaceae

This morning as we drove around PCC on our monthly bird survey, we spotted four or five pronghorns standing in the grass half a mile away. When we put our binoculars on them to count them, we suddenly discovered a bunch of smaller heads and ears sticking up out of the grass—pronghorn fawns, about eight of them.

Pronghorn does usually give birth to twins. For the first three or four weeks, the fawns hide in the grass while mom moves off 50 to 75 yards to graze. The fawns are born scentless, so coyotes can't sniff them out, and their coloring blends with the prairie grasses so golden eagles have a tough time spotting them.

When mom decides it's time to nurse the fawns, she calls them to her. Then she sends them back to their hiding places. She can't take them to there or she'd leave a scent for a coyote to follow. The fawns aren't completely defenseless, however. At four days, they can already run 25 mph, faster than any human.

Here nearing mid July, the fawns can run fast enough to keep up with the herd and out of the jaws of a coyote. And the does in the nursery herd will run off any coyote that tries to grab a fawn. So keep your eyes open for little pronghorns mixed in with big ones. They are a joy to see.


 

Look for:

  • a flower that is closed during the day, but spectacular when open in the evening
  • a many branched plant up to 20 inches tall, with erect white shiny stems that grows in clumps
  • leaves that are alternate, from 2 to 4 inches long, serrated or irregularly dentate, and with tiny stiff barbed hairs on both surfaces
  • a very showy flower, two to three inches in diameter, 10 white to pale cream petals that are lance shaped with tapering points toward the base, and one to one and a half inches long
  • up to 150 stamens, lance shaped, that are almost as long as the petals


Ecological and Human Use:

  1. grows on sandy and gravely hillsides and mesas and often along highways
  2. when observed during the middle of the day it appears as sparse weedy vegetation
  3. is called “stickleaf” because of the pagoda shaped  and hooked barbs on the leaves that cling to clothing or hair and will lower the value of sheep’s wool
  4. it has a strong deep taproot
  5. Mentzelia nuda has been listed by the Colorado Native Plant Society as desirable for rock gardens on the Front Range and is available from Granite Seed in Lehi, Utah

 

 
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