We made an impromptu trip to Dublin, Ireland to scout out chemistry grad school programs with eldest grandson, and of course, we had to check out the local birding hotspots. Our hotel just happened to be down the street from the Booterstown marsh and the beach beyond it. (Booterstown is the anglicized name for the Irish version of “Town on the Road”, and has nothing to do with getting evicted from the area.)
One of the first birds we saw in the marsh was a familiar one that we see in Minnesota in the summer, Green-winged Teal. In Ireland and the UK, they are the only teal species, so they are known as just Teal.Redshanks are common birds of all wetlands, and easily recognized by their bright orangey-red legs.Redshanks viewed up close. I have only ever seen these birds one at a time and from a long distance, so this was a treat.A few dozens of Black-tailed Godwits mostly resting in mid-afternoon.A little closer view reveals the black-tail. Hooded crow flying over the few Godwits.In flight, the Black-tailed Godwits have a striking wing pattern.There were also dozens of Oystercatchers on the beach, some probing for invertebrates, and some just resting.Oystercatchers are striking in flight with their bright orange beaks and legs and black and white plumage.Brant geese are medium sized geese (much smaller than Canada Geese) that spend the winter along temperate zone sea coasts and fly to the high arctic areas to breed.Beautiful birds on the ground and in flight.I had lots of opportunities to photograph birds in flight, thanks to a Border Collie making the rounds along the edge of the beach.My bird chaser friend.
We had a long walk along the beach photographing the birds and didn’t pay much attention to the tide moving in. This beach is so flat that just one inch of water coming in floods a huge section of the shore. As a result, we had to scramble up on the rocks, holding on to the wall that separates the beach from the train track in order to get back to our passageway across the tracks. A scary moment.
I admit it—we took a Caribbean cruise in January to escape. We have always taken what I would call “active vacations”, meaning go-go-go every waking minute, every day, to maximize the seeing, learning, and doing while in a new environment. This January cruise was not that! In fact, it was large quantities of enforced relaxation on sea days, and pushing 80 now, I found that quite acceptable for time away from the winter blahs (and cold). By the time we got home, though, Minnesota was under attack, and the Twin Cities were occupied by a hostile group from our own federal government. And that was the end of a relaxing January.
Birding in the Costa Maya resort on the Yucatan coast of Mexico was challenging. The resort was walled off from the surrounding area, which made it difficult to leave the beach, but we persisted and eventually found some natural vegetation and some of the local avifauna on roads leading in and out of the resort.
This Black-headed Trogon sat very quietly in vegetation at a forest edge. The species has a very limited distribution in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and the coastal forests of Central America, where it lives in semi-open habitats including banana and cacao plantations. It forages on fruit and insects, catching the latter like a flycatcher by sallying out from a perch.An Orange Oriole (new bird for me) is orange all over except for a black face, bib, wings, and tail. It is found only on the tip of the Yucatan peninsula and feeds specifically on the fruits of two native trees. Its “orange-ness” is dependent on its diet. Groove-billed Ani is actually a member of the cuckoo family and gets its name from the ridges on its mandible (upper part of the beak). They usually occur in shrubby or brushy habitats throughout Central America, especially where there are cows. They travel around in small flocks that tend to scare insects into flight as the birds move noisily through the vegetation.Social Flycatchers are widespread from Mexico to northern South America, and are so-named for their gregarious habit of traveling around in small family groups. Although these flycatchers feed mostly on insects, they also consume a lot of berries and seeds.Tropical Mockingbirds are a little smaller and a little grayer than their North American cousins, and are also commonly found around human habitations. They forage primarily on the ground, feeding on a variety of insects, fruits, seeds, small lizards, bird eggs, etc. This bird was actively searching around its perch, and eventually flew across the road and began a dispute with a neighbor.A “Mexican stand-off” between the neighbors ensued. There was a lot of posturing and then some attacks.After a few tussles like this, then both birds flew off into the bush. It wasn’t clear who won the battle.
Unfortunately, our field trip in Costa Maya came to a sudden end when we were discovered by one of the supervisors of the local work crew, who informed me that we had trespassed into a demolition zone.
After our brief stay in the Canal Zone, our ship headed for Puerto Limón, Costa Rica. This moderately-sized city is Costa Rica’s primary Caribbean port, and is also the gateway to Costa Rica’s beautiful rainforest preserves. Costa Rica has more than 30 National Parks, which combine to protect about 25% of its total land area (compare that to the less than 1% of land area in Madagascar and only 13% in the U.S. that is protected in National Parks).
Looking out on the city from the ship is a scene of colorful, one-story buildings typical of smaller Costa Rican cities. Flying overhead are a dozen or more Magnificent Frigatebirds, a welcome sign that we are indeed in the tropics.
The female Frigatebird (left) has a white head and breast; males (right) are solid black with a red throat patch. They swoop and soar without ever flapping their wings.
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Frigatebirds spend most of the day in flight, looking for fish or invertebrate prey, and spend the night in trees or on cliffs.
We set out in a bus for an hour+ trip inland to visit first a finca (farm) that offers rainforest tours, boating, lodging, and food, and then a banana plantation.
A sleepy and very wet sloth was spotted high up in a tree along the roadside. Everyone peeled out of the bus to take a look.We had a short hike in the rainforest to see sugarcane processing and various agricultural plantings.Along the way, someone spotted a Boat-billed Heron, a bird that looks very much like a Night Heron whose bill got flattened in a press. These herons are nocturnal and have very large eyes; they live in mangroves and estuaries but nest in mangroves.They forage in shallow streams and lagoons, going after pretty much everything that lives there smaller than they are. They use that enormous bill to scoop up creatures in the surface water, typically hunting in complete darkness.Young bananas grow from the roots of ones that have been cut down during the banana harvest.A grove of cacao plants showed pods of different ages. The seeds are covered with a slimy white membrane that is tasty to eat, but the seed is bitter before it is roasted. The seeds are mature once the pod turns yellow-green.A Scarlet-rumped Tanager flitted through the vegetation, chasing something, then stopped and posed nicely. They are often found in places like this semi-forest, semi-garden habitat, eating fruit and insects.I went for a short hike along a stream and heard this bird singing “Kiskadee” before I saw it — a Great Kiskadee.Sitting on branches over the stream was a Green Heron, a friend from home (maybe…)
After lunch and another hike, we drove to a banana plantation where bananas, cacao, tobacco, coffee, and pineapples were being produced for commercial sale.
These banana plants were actually 15-20 feet tall. Each plant produces one flower stalk from which the bananas develop (top right).Once the bananas are ripe, the whole plant is harvested, the banana stalk is bagged, and attached to a long pulley line that carries it to a warehouse. This saves workers from having to haul each heavy bunch of bananas separately.It wasn’t coffee flowering or berry time, but this scene must be beautiful when it is.Pineapples are actually bromeliads (plants that often grow on other plants), characterized by spiky leaves formed in a rosette, that will produce a single fruit from many flowers.The incredibly elongate leaves of a tobacco plant were a surprise. Supposedly, the greatest concentration of nicotine is in the base of the leaf.
A large lump high on one of the bare trees among the banana plants started to move around, and when it finally shifted toward me, I got some nice images of a two-toed sloth.
A charming face any mother could love.Check out those very sharp talons on their toes. There is a slight greenish tinge to the fur on its back and sides; this is algae that grows well in the damp conditions of the tropical forests where sloths live, and they may actually ingest it while grooming to provide a little extra source of nutrients..
Sloths have made a commitment to hanging from trees; in fact, their musculature is designed to resist pull. But on the ground, the muscles to support their body weight on four limbs (pushing muscles) are very weak, and thus, sloths only come down to the ground to defecate once a week.
After our brief encounter with the Costa Rican tropics, we’re now off to drier places in Mexico and the islands of the Caribbean.
Lago Gatún was created when engineers dammed the Chagres River in the Panamanian Isthmus to provide a water source for the locks in the Panama Canal. This large reservoir is approximately 85 feet above sea level, and ships in transit from the Pacific to the Atlantic, for example, are raised via the Pacific set of locks to pass through the lake, and then are lowered to the Atlantic sea level via the Atlantic locks. Construction of the reservoir created numerous islands that were simply flooded mountain tops, and these islands have become a popular tourist spot, in addition to the canal itself. Small boats, like the ones in the photo below, carry visitors around the islands to view wildlife.
We departed from a dock near the Gamboa Rainforest Reserve on the Chagres River and made our way out to the Canal channel that led to Lake Gatun.It took us 15-20 minutes to cruise the canal and get to the lake from the dock, and we were going fast enough to send up significant spray (note for the future: don’t sit in the back of the boat when it’s going fast!)The forested islands along the Canal are a rich mixture of deciduous trees and palms that create a distinct layering of the vegetation into near-ground, middle height, and tall canopy treetops.
Several islands lie right at the entrance to the lake, and we explored these in a much slower fashion, checking each cove for monkeys and birds. The monkeys have become quite used to boats full of curious humans, because they often get fed fruit by the guides. In fact, they are so tame and a little greedy that they come right onto the boat and beg.
“Give me the fruit”, says the White-faced Capuchin monkey.Black (or Black and Gold) Howlers are the largest monkeys in Latin America, and they usually live in small family groups of a single male, multiple females, and offspring. Fully adult males lose their golden brown fur and are solid black. Females are grey to golden brownish. Black Howlers are primarily leaf eaters, but they like fruit as well.Their name comes from the male’s ability to vibrate his hyoid (throat) bone to create a resonating chamber that produces deep and very loud, guttural roars. The howl is most often used as a territorial display as well as keeping the group “within shouting distance”. On other islands, we found the medium-sized White-faced Capuchin monkeys, who are highly social and live in large family groups. These monkeys have a varied diet of plant material, fruits, invertebrates, and some small vertebrates like lizards, birds, and rodents.These are the “organ-grinder monkeys”, easily tamed and long-lived in captivity. They are native to the Central American rainforests and are thought to be essential in the ecology of the forest for their role in seed and pollen dispersal. Capuchins are one of the most intelligent monkeys and have been studied for their ability to make tools to better exploit food resources.Geoffroy’s Tamarin is a small monkey (tamarin, actually) that lives in small family groups of 3-5 individuals. Usually, only one female of the group is reproductively active at a time, and she mates with all the other males and usually produces a set of twins. Males contribute significantly to infant care, carrying the infants when the female is not nursing, until they reach reproductive age at about two years.A dark gray-black Snail Kite was perched right on the edge of the island above the water. In Florida its diet consists almost entirely of introduced Apple Snails, but in Latin America, their diet is varied with snails, crustaceans, small fish, turtles, and snakes on the list of prey. They are gregarious in the winter and form large winter roosts. Black Vultures are omnipresent everywhere, flying overhead, sitting in treetops, and resting at the edge of the water. These birds are part of the clean-up squad, removing carrion and animal debris from the landscape, but they will also eat eggs, reptiles, or small newborn animals or afterbirth. A Wattled Jacana begged for a closer look from its shoreline perch, but alas we were on the lookout for monkeys, not birds, on this trip.
But the Wattled Jacana deserves a closer look (thanks to a photo by Charles J Sharp, posted on Wikipedia).
Jacana females lay four mottled eggs which are then tended by the male until hatching. She is generally larger and more colorful than the male and also more aggressive. Jacanas have extremely long toes, which enable them to walk on the surface of emergent vegetation.A monster (4-foot) Iguana rested on a branch near the shoreline of one island. The all-green female (half his size) was on a nearby branch.We pulled up to one tree along the bank, and I thought we were looking at insects lined up on the trunk, but the telephoto proved they were tiny Long-nosed (Proboscis) Bats. Weighing less than 1/2 an ounce and measuring about 1.5 inches, these bats are nocturnal insect hunters that spend the daytime in this formation, usually on a tree hanging over the water.
This kind of adventure just leaves you wanting more, but we had to return to the ship to cruise to the next port. This was definitely a highlight of our trip for me, so far.
The first port of call on our cruise was the northern coastal Jamaican city of Ocho Rios (but we didn’t even see one of the eight rivers) on our tour of the countryside. But we did see some interesting sights along the coast:
Ocho Rios is located on the northeast coast of Jamaica—the capital, Kingston is on the southeast coast. Coastal cities are vulnerable to seasonal hurricanes and Ocho Rios suffered a direct hit from Melissa in October 2025, which caused catastrophic damage and flooding, especially in scenic Fern Gully (which is home to hundreds of endemic fern species.)
Konoko Botanic garden, zoo, and waterfall (a tropical paradise to wander around for an hour or two!)
Paved walks take you around and over a small stream in this lush tropical jungle.Red ginger is a favorite of the butterflies like these zebra Heliconias.There are several cages of noisy parrots in the “zoo”.Climbing the waterfall is a main attraction.A very hyperactive Black-throated Blue Warbler has chosen to spen the winter months here before migrating through MN next spring.This orb weaver doesn’t look too threatening until you know that it is about 3 inches long!A Brown Anolis lizard was busily proclaiming his territory in the garden.
Of course there are a variety of beautiful hotels along the coast of Jamaica ready to welcome the snow and cold-weary Northerner. Just imagine swimming in this warm, turquoise water!
A fantastic introduction to Jamaican life! Can’t wait to come back!
Once again, we’ve fled the icy cold northland for the warmth of sunny Florida, and we’re on the hunt for some birds to see. Where better than the Everglades National Park, right at the end of the road at Flamingo. And yes, there were raptors galore, more than there were small songbirds, which were in short supply.
Ospreys and Turkey Vultures dominated the raptor scene, almost always one or two of them in sight.
Those big feet, with rough scaly pads on the underside. Osprey in Florida don’t seem to be as shy as the ones I see in Minnesota in the summer. They sit quietly while we walk right under them.Quite a regal-looking Osprey, this presumed male was perched close to its nest, where it’s presumed mate was incubating eggs —as seen in the next photo.This nest was much bigger than the typical Osprey nest, and I wondered if it had been used by Bald Eagles in the past.Every few minutes an Osprey flew over at the campground area at Flamingo.Turkey Vultures were commonly seen flying overhead, but there were also a few at the campground, and this one perched nicely in a shaded spot.There were also a few Black Vultures hanging out at the marina at Flamingo. These birds are slightly larger (and better looking) than their cousins.Red-shouldered Hawks are probably the most commonly seen big hawk in Florida, because they like to sit and wait in roadside trees for some unsuspecting prey to wander by.This little female Kestrel preened itself for about 20 minutes, digging and scratching at its plumage, but every now and then, it would perk up and look around.We saw quite a few Northern Harriers flying over the coastal prairie and grassy areas, but most were too far away (and too fast-moving) to capture.
What a great introduction to birding in Florida, and how nice to be out walking around in warm weather without worrying about tripping on the ice!
We saw over 200 species of birds on our trip to Namibia: some just once or twice, some almost every day, some as single individuals hidden in brush, some in large groups out in the open. Since I can’t show you everything we saw, I’m going to summarize some highlights of our bird watching by representing them in a Christmas song.
With apologies to Frederick Austin, the composer of “The Twelve Days of Christmas”…
On our trip to Southern Africa, we were very pleased to see… (are you singing the opening line?)
12 Rosy-faced Lovebirds
Lovebirds make cute noises and like to huddle together for warmth.
11 Ostrich chicks
Mother Ostrich casts a big shadow by fluffing out her feathers, and the chicks find the shade.
10 Red-billed Quelea
The MOST numerous non-domesticated bird in the world, and Africa’s biggest agricultural (grain) pest. This species holds the record for the highest body temperature tolerated by warm-blooded animals (up to 49 C or 120 F)!
9 Sacred Ibis
Sacred Ibis are known for their role in Egyptian religion (the earthly form of the god Thoth), but they are now extinct there.
8 (Greater) Flamingos flying
Greater Flamingos are the largest and most widespread of all flamingos, but are also the palest, with bright pink coloration only on the wings and legs.
7 Helmeted Guineafowl
Helmeted Guineafowl wander around in huge flocks, often in single file. They have been domesticated and are excellent watchdogs, sounding loud alarm calls when disturbed.
6 Hartlaub Gulls
Hartlaub’s Gull is endemic to Southern Africa and is the most common gull seen on the coast. It forms large, noisy breeding colonies and has adapted well to human presence along the coast.
5 Bare-faced Babblers (be sure to drag out the “five”)
Their name gives it away; these birds chatter continuously. They are highly social, live in tight family groups, and practice cooperative breeding with helpers from previous years tending the new chicks.
4 Blue Cranes
Blue Cranes are the national bird of South Africa. Their elegant, long tail feathers, stately appearance, and courtly dancing made them a favorite of indigenous people in South Africa.
3 Pied Avocets
They look like Black-necked Stilts, but they have upturned beaks that they use to sweep back and forth in the water to trap small invertebrate prey.
2 Namaqua Sandgrouse
They are so well camouflaged that you can’t see them unless they move. These birds can saturate their innermost breast feathers with water to carry it long distances back to their nestlings.
And a bevy of some brightly colored birds! (final line of the song OR substitute one of the brightly colored birds below into your song for the “partridge in a pear tree” part).
Green-winged Patillia in Acacia melliferaMarico Sunbird looking for some nectar (Photo by Debbie Reynolds)Swallow-tailed Bee-eater on a branch (Photo by Debbie Reynolds)Cape Starling walking in the grassCrimson-breasted Shrike upon a twig
The Secretarybird is unusual-looking for a raptor, but in fact, its closest relatives are the Accipiter hawks, those long-tailed, bird-eating avian predators often found in your backyard. Secretarybirds are widespread in sub-Saharan Africa, but not very common due to habitat loss. They prefer the grassy savannahs and semi-desert scrub to hunt for snakes, rodents, birds or bird eggs, insects, etc.
Secretarybirds have the head and body of an eagle and the long legs of a crane, which make them about 4 feet in height. They stalk their prey, rather than soar or perch looking for them, and those long legs are useful to see into the surrounding vegetation, as well as protect them from the bites of the snakes they love to eat. Long legs are also useful to enable them to walk long distances each day searching for their next meal.Walking near a Springbok antelope illustrates the unusual height of the Secretarybird a little better. But why is it called a Secretarybird? The answer lies in the strange set of head feathers that stick out like the pencils that secretaries supposedly stored behind their ears or in their hair, in case they broke the one they were using. (This is a folk tale, I’m sure.)The frontal view is imposing with all the head feathers erected. Image by an unknown photographer.The typical posture of a Secretarybird hunting for a meal. Once they find a prey item, they attack it by stomping it to death. This is especially useful in immobilizing snakes before they can bite.
Although they spend most of the day walking and hunting, Secretarybirds are able flyers with 7-foot wingspans to propel their 8-9 pound bodies through the air. They roost at night and nest in trees, especially thorny acacias. They are not migratory, but may be nomadic, moving location when food becomes scarce.
A beautiful bird in flight that might resemble a crane with its long wings and legs. But the raptorial beak and long tail distinguish Secretarybirds from cranes. From Wikipedia, photo by Stephen Temple.
When looking for new birds in the foreign countries we visit, we sometimes come across entire families of birds we have not seen before. We discovered that Namibia is a great place to see several species of the Bustard family. The name Bustard translates from Latin to Old French to Anglo-Saxon French as “slow bird”, which really doesn’t describe these fast-running, ground-foraging birds at all well.
To give some context to this discussion, think of Bustards as the European/African ecological counterparts of North American grouse, or chickens, or turkeys.
The male Kori Bustard (left) is about the same weight as the male American Turkey (right). In both species, males attract females by erecting their tail and breast feathers in an ostentatious display. Turkeys gobble and Kori Bustards emit a deep booming call to attract females.
The Kori Bustard is the largest flying bird native to Africa, and male Kori Bustards may be the heaviest living animal capable of flight at an average of 30 pounds (maximum recorded weight of 40 pounds), ahead of other large-bodied avian species like American Turkeys, Whooper and Mute Swans, Andean Condors, and Wandering Albatross.
Kori Bustards are found throughout southern Africa, except dense woodlands, but they especially favor the open plains and savanna grasslands, where they walk slowly while looking for insects, small vertebrates (lizards and snakes), small mammals, bird eggs, seeds, berries, and roots.
In size and behavior, Kori Bustards are similar to North American turkeys in their ground-feeding habits, the male displays of raised tail feathers for females, and polygamous breeding behavior, in which the male attracts and inseminates females, but does nothing else to rear the chicks.
The Bustard family also includes smaller ground-feeding and fast-running species called Korhaans, a name derived from the Afrikaans language to describe the grunting sound these birds make.
Ruppell’s Korhaan is a much smaller bustard than the Kori Bustard, only measuring about two feet in length. These birds prefer the more arid grasslands and savannahs, where their camouflaged plumage and quick darting escape actions help them survive predation. Unlike the Kori Bustard, this species is monogamous and can often be found in small family groups.The Northern Black Korhaan is about the same size as Ruppell’s Korhaan, and is also found in open plains, semi-desert scrub, and grasslands. The male is a boldly patterned black and white bird, while the female is well camouflaged with gray-brown plumage that blends so well into the yellow-brown grasses that she is rarely seen. Males run when chased, but then burst into flight to escape, much like the Sage Grouse of the American plains do.
We happened to drive by a male Red-crested Korhaan in pursuit of a female. These quick-darting birds are a little smaller than the other two Korhaan species and weigh just over a pound. Unfortunately, this male’s many attempts to show off his red crest and pursue her through thick brush were unsuccessful, but highly entertaining.
The male poked his head up from the dense grasses to check on the female’s location. When he is at rest and not actively displaying, his red crest is well hidden at the nape of his neck.Sexual advances include a stooped posture and fluffing the salmon-colored feathers at the back of his head, which unfurl like a collar around his head.The male in the lower part of the image is giving her his best display, but she (upper part of the image) was not overly interested, and the chase ultimately ended with both birds running off.
As if the display of a ruffled neck feather collar weren’t enough, Male Red-crested Korhaans also engage in what is called a “suicide flight”, in which they fly up over the female and then drop to the ground, catching themselves just before they hit. Obviously, the males that don’t survive this reproductive display don’t reproduce!
Such interesting bird life histories in the dry Namib savannah environment!
Cheetahs are one of the most amazing animals on the planet (in my opinion). The Namibian savannah is an ideal environment for them to live because of its open, grassy areas and the relative lack of other, larger, and more dominant competitors that might steal their kills (e.g., lions and leopards). To appreciate just how unique and well-suited they are as hunters of the savannah’s antelope, watch the video below. You won’t be able to view the video in your email unless you click on the bolded title of the post to go directly to the blog URL (https://bybio.wordpress.com) .
Smithsonian Channel, 2012.
We were fortunate to see Cheetahs on two occasions in Etosha National Park, which has a large cheetah population. In both cases, the cheetahs were resting under trees in the shade in midday. Although they are primarily diurnal hunters, their high-intensity chases leave them both breathless and overheated, and they must rest for a while to recover.
Our guide spotted a group of White-backed and Lappet-faced Vultures sitting out in the open and knew there was probably a recent kill near them.And then, he spotted this Cheetah sitting in the shade under a Mopane tree, panting.Panting and salivation are one of the ways Cheetahs can cool off after the chase. You can see the slightly blood-tinged fur on its right cheek that indicates it has recently fed. Cheetahs eat immediately after they kill their prey and gulp food quickly before other predators find the kill. They eat an average of 6 pounds of meat a day but can consume as much as 22 pounds of meat at one time, if left undisturbed.We may have bothered the Cheetah enough that it finally got up and walked back to its kill, offering us a wonderful view of its spectacular anatomy: barrel chest with big lungs and heart, very large forelimb and hindlimb musculature, elongated back, and long legs, and a long, muscular tail used as a rudder for quick turns during a full-out sprint. These anatomical gifts are what give the cheetah its incredibly long stride and its ability to rapidly recycle its limb flexion and extension so that it can get up to maximal speed in just three seconds!Making its way back to its kill for another snack. Spots on the cheetah’s body really make its form stand out as it walks through the sea of dead grass stems. But look at the next image below.But those same spots ensure that cheetahs are hidden in the long grass and shade, and may be difficult for prey to spot when the cheetahs are low down in the vegetation, waiting for the opportunity to attack.
On another occasion, we found these two cheetahs lying in the shade of an acacia tree right next to the gravel road we were driving. Our guide guessed these were probably two brothers who were hunting together. It is common among male littermates to form this hunting bond, and occasionally also between two unrelated males. Females are usually solitary, except when they have youngsters in tow, who may participate in the hunt and the kill as they get older and stronger.
If the spots are for camouflage while hunting, what is the purpose of those black teardrop streaks alongside their nose? Since cheetahs are diurnal hunters that use their keen eyesight to spot and track prey, some people speculate that the teardrops function like the black cream that football players put beneath their eyes to reduce sun glare.
At home in the Namibian savannah — what an incredible experience seeing these magnificent animals!
[An unrelated note about Cheetahs: have you ever wondered why American Pronghorn can run so fast (up to 60 mph) when there is no American predator that can match that speed?
The top speed of American wolves is about 35 mph; the maximum speed of American pumas (cougars) is about 50 mph. Neither would be able to catch Pronghorn in an open field chase. But, after the last Ice Age and up until about 10-15,000 years ago, there was a diverse ecosystem of herbivores and carnivores in the American grasslands that rivalled those in Africa, and the chief predator of the Pronghorn in that ecosystem was the American Cheetah. If only time machines were a real thing…sigh.]
Back Yard Biology 