Have You Herd? Trivia Quiz

America's fastest land mammal, the pronghorn is found throughout the midwest where it's also known as the American antelope, and this isn't a far reach as an alternative name since it shares quite a bit of its physiology with African animals like giraffes. Pronghorns are one of the very few land animals in North America that hold large-scale migrations, creating a route across the lower mountains west of the Mississippi and travelling towards the Continental Divide and back.

Many migratory routes of these creatures have been tracked through Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, and they often follow waterways as they head into and out of the Rockies.

Although small pockets of European bison exist across the Atlantic, the typical bison of America-- the plains bison and the wood bison-- are in the American and Canadian northwest. The wood bison is found further north in protected Canadian wilderness while the plains bison makes its natural home in and around Yellowstone National Park.

At one time nearly hunted to extinction, Yellowstone became a safe haven for repopulation, and the migration pattern of these mammals is mostly within the park's limits; they'll descend from higher altitudes seeing food in the winter.

One of the highest-flying bats in the world, the Mexican free-tailed bat is also one of the most common mammals in the hemisphere, spanning both North and South America though, by and large, being in the highest numbers in the Southern States and Central America.

The ones found in North America migrate annually, travelling further south or west into Baja California and Mexico during cooler months. They're also important creatures for states like Texas where their presence not only helps keep down bug populations, but has historically contributed to mineral exports (through guano).

Although reindeer/caribou cover much of the Northern reaches of the Northern Hemisphere (through Canada, Scandinavia, and Russia), the indicated migration area on this map is around the George River in the Ungava Peninsula where a massive herd of caribou cycle between mating and calving grounds closer to the Labrador Sea and wintering grounds further to the southwest in Quebec's remote wilds.

It's the furthest migratory reach of any land mammal in the world.

An African antelope variant, the white-eared cob makes its home along a strip of Africa that stretches from the Atlantic coast in the Gambia all the way to the savannahs of South Sudan, seeing prominence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, especially in wetter regions.

The kobs in the eastern countries of the range are much more migratory, travelling with massive numbers of other antelopes and gazelles (numbering in the millions) that stretch nearly fifty miles in length during the wet season.

It's a trip that takes them nearly a thousand miles south for grasslands and safety.

One of the most famous and numerous gazelles in Africa, the Thomson's gazelle doesn't have a colossal range-- you'd find most of them in Kenya and Tanzania across the Serengeti and Great Rift Valley. This species' migration pattern follows the seasons as they shift their locations based on where they can eat shortgrasses. Often joining larger herds as they pass through higher grasslands, they'll make their way into denser brush and woodlands to forage during tougher times, shuffling around the most convenient feeding spots and watering holes from Lake Victoria to Kilimanjaro.

A variant subspecies of the typical plains zebra, Burchell's zebra differs slightly in its colouration and its tail-- just enough for a keen observer to tell the difference. In terms of migration, they travel in large herds along a fairly definitive and lengthy path, taking advantage of wet and dry seasons in south-central Africa.

Their route spans more than five hundred kilometres from the Chobe River in Namibia to Nxai Pan National Park (next to the Makgadikgadi Salt Pan) in Botswana, a trail that runs almost entirely through the protected Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area.

It's the longest migration for any African mammal.

Also known as the white-tailed gnu, the black wildebeest thrives almost exclusively in South Africa in the plains and plateaus surrounding Lesotho (where it was actually hunted to near-extinction). Similar to the blue wildebeest, also native to the area, these creatures roamed in herds along the Great Escarpment, usually migrating about as far as the edge of the Drakensbergs for ideal food sources.

Although, at one time, these animals moved in abundance, modern wildebeest are typically protected in reserves. Efforts in the early 21st century have allowed them to crop up in populations in bordering countries.

The saiga antelope, found throughout the Eurasian steppes (though especially Southern Russia, the 'Stans, and Mongolia), was at one time very prolific as an antelope with a range crossing into Western Europe and even the Western Hemisphere. In modern times, however, it's been shifted into more strict conservation efforts. Affected greatly, especially in regards to their migration patterns, by climate change and overhunting, they've been extremely susceptible to diseases that, historically, have not been encountered by the species in the past.

In the winter, to be able to eat grasses, they'll migrate south to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

The chiru, also known as the Tibetan antelope, resides almost exclusively on the Tibetan Plateau in Central Asia's Himalayan range. Interestingly, there are strong efforts to preserve the chiru population in China, which makes up the bulk of their habitat range, to the extent that the Chinese government has constructed tunnels in the mountains to allow these antelope to pass along their lengthy migration trails unimpeded. Females of the species will generally cross hundreds of miles of high altitude land to give birth to calves in the protected Hoh Xil Region the largest and highest plateau in the world.

This occurs during the summer, and each female will give birth to only a single calf.