Mementos, Notes, and Fragments

Evolution happens for practical reasons. The beaks of Darwin’s finches didn’t get longer because it was trending on social, but because that made it easier to pluck the seeds of cactus fruits. Which makes the speed of North America’s pronghorn, the fastest animal on the continent, a bit of a mystery. Why is this critter so much faster than anything that might chase and eat it? Wolves top out around thirty-seven miles per hour, coyotes around forty-three, and mountain lions around fifty, while the pronghorn can run sixty miles per hour and maintain fifty-seven for nine miles. It could bang out a marathon in just forty minutes, were it so inclined.

Everything about the pronghorn, which isn’t an antelope but is instead related to giraffes and okapis, is designed for velocity and fast escape. Their bones