This animal is sometimes considered a living fossil. It shows many primitive traits. Perhaps the most obvious primitive attribute is in that pronghorns shed their horns yearly just like a deer. It is the only living horned animal that does this. Animals in the order Artiodactyla are known as the even toed animals.
Artiodactyls are sometimes called cloven hooved, that is they have two toes.
Artiodactyl skulls come in many shapes and forms. Those found in Old World pigs are large and massive with large upper canines that grow outwards and backwards forming tusks. The skull of the New World equivalent of a pig, the peccary, is small and more delicate. Its canines grow downward and meet with the lower canines to form precision scissors. Animals of the order Artiodactyla may have antlers or horns.