science

Ungulate

Ungulate is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Ungulate rather than just read about it. In short: Ungulates are members of the diverse clade Euungulata, which primarily consists of large mammals with hooves. Once part of the taxon "Ungulata" along with paenungulates and tubulidentates, as well as several extinct taxa, "Ungulata" has since been determined to be a polyphyletic grouping based on molecular data.

Key takeaways

Ungulate belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Ungulate to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Ungulate from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Ungulates are members of the diverse clade Euungulata, which primarily consists of large mammals with hooves. Once part of the taxon "Ungulata" along with paenungulates and tubulidentates, as well as several extinct taxa, "Ungulata" has since been determined to be a polyphyletic grouping based on molecular data. As a result, true ungulates have since been reclassified to the newer clade Euungulata in 2001 within the clade Laurasiatheria, while Paenungulata and Tubulidentata have been reclassified to the distant clade Afrotheria. Alternatively, some authors use the name Ungulata to designate the same clade as Euungulata. Living ungulates are divided into two orders:

Odd-toed Perissodactyla including equines, rhinoceroses, and tapirs. Even-toed Artiodactyla including cattle, antelope, pigs, giraffes, camels, sheep, deer, and hippopotamuses, among others. Cetaceans such as whales, dolphins, and porpoises are also classified as artiodactyls, although they do not have hooves. Most terrestrial ungulates use the hoofed tips of their toes to support their body weight while standing or moving. Two other orders of ungulates, Notoungulata and Litopterna, both native to South America, became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene, around 12,000 years ago. The term means, roughly, "being hoofed" or "hoofed animal". As a descriptive term, "ungulate" normally excludes cetaceans as they do not possess most of the typical morphological characteristics of other ungulates, but they were also descended from early artiodactyls. Ungulates are typically herbivorous and many employ specialized gut bacteria to enable them to digest cellulose, though some members may deviate from this: several species of pigs and the extinct entelodonts are omnivorous, while cetaceans are carnivorous.

Etymology Ungulate is from the Late Latin adjective ungulatus 'hoofed', from ungula 'hoof', a diminutive of unguis 'nail' (finger nail; toe nail).

Classifications

History Euungulata is a clade (or in some taxonomies, a grand order) of mammals. The two extant orders of ungulates are the Perissodactyla (odd-toed ungulates) and Artiodactyla (even-toed ungulates). Hyracoidea (hyraxes), Sirenia (sea cows, dugongs and manatees), Proboscidea (elephants) and Tubulidentata (aardvarks) were in the past grouped within the clade "Ungulata", later found to be a polyphyletic and invalid. The three orders of Paenungulata are considered a clade and grouped in the Afrotheria clade, along with Tubulidentata, while Euungulata is grouped under the Laurasiatheria clade. In 2009, morphological and molecular work found that aardvarks, hyraxes, sea cows, and elephants were more closely related to each other and to sengis, tenrecs, and golden moles than to the perissodactyls and artiodactyls, and form the clade Afrotheria. Elephants, sea cows, and hyraxes were grouped together in the clade Paenungulata, while the aardvark has been considered as either a close relative to them or a close relative to sengis in the clade Afroinsectiphilia. This is a striking example of convergent evolution. There is some dispute as to whether this smaller Euungulata is a cladistic (evolution-based) group, or merely a phenetic group (form taxon) or folk taxon (similar, but not necessarily related). Some studies have indeed found the mesaxonian ungulates and paraxonian ungulates to form a monophyletic lineage, closely related to either the Ferae (the carnivorans and the pangolins) in the clade Fereuungulata or to the bats. Other studies found the two orders not that closely related, as some place the perissodactyls as close relatives to bats and Ferae in Pegasoferae and others place the artiodactyls as close relatives to bats.

Taxonomy

Below is a simplified taxonomy (assuming that ungulates do indeed form a natural grouping) with the extant families, in order of the relationships. Keep in mind that there were still some grey areas of conflict, such as the case with the relationship between the pecoran families and the baleen whale families. See each family for the relationships of the species as well as the controversies in their respective articles.

Euungulata Perissodactyla (Mesaxonian ungulates) Hippomorpha Equidae: Horses, asses and zebras Ceratomorpha Tapiridae: Tapirs Rhinocerotidae: Rhinoceroses Artiodactyla (= Cetartiodactyla) (Paraxonian ungulates) Tylopoda Camelidae: Camels and llamas Artiofabula Suina Tayassuidae: Peccaries Suidae: Pigs Cetruminantia Ruminantia Tragulidae: Chevrotains Cervoidea Antilocapridae: Pronghorn Giraffidae: Giraffes and okapi Cervidae: Deer Moschidae: Musk deer Bovidae: Cattle and antelopes Whippomorpha Hippopotamidae: Hippopotamuses Cetacea Mysticeti Balaenidae: Bowhead and right whales Cetotheriidae: Pygmy right whale Balaenopteridae: Rorquals Odontoceti Physeteroidea Physeteridae: Sperm whale Kogiidae: Lesser sperm whales Platanistoidea Platanistidae: Indian river dolphins Ziphioidea Ziphiidae: Beaked whales Lipotoidea Lipotidae: Baiji (functionally extinct) Inioidea Iniidae: Amazonian river dolphins Pontoporiidae: La Plata dolphin Delphinoidea Monodontidae: Beluga and narwhal Phocoenidae: Porpoises Delphinidae: Oceanic dolphins

Phylogeny Below is the general consensus of the phylogeny of the ungulate families.

Evolutionary history

Perissodactyla and Artiodactyla include the majority of large land mammals. These two groups first appeared during the late Paleocene, rapidly spreading to a wide variety of species on numerous continents, and have developed in parallel since that time. Some scientists believed that modern ungulates were descended from an evolutionary grade of mammals known as the condylarths. The earliest known member of this group may have been the tiny Protungulatum, a mammal that co-existed with the last of non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago. However, many authorities do not consider it a true placental, let alone an ungulate. The enigmatic dinoceratans were among the first large herbivorous mammals, although their exact relationship with other mammals is still debated with one of the theories being that they might just be distant relatives to living ungulates; the most recent study recovers them as within the true ungulate assemblage, closest to Carodnia. In Australia, the recently extinct marsupial Chaeropus ("pig-footed bandicoot") also developed hooves similar to those of artiodactyls, an example of convergent evolution.

Perissodactyl evolution

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ungulate

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ungulate claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Ungulate before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Ungulate ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Ungulate

In research: Ungulate appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Ungulate in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Ungulate is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Animal taxa named by Carl Linnaeus, Extant Paleocene first appearances, Ungulates, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ungulate outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Ungulate in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ungulate means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Ungulate out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ungulate in simple terms?

Why does Ungulate matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Ungulate?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Ungulate.