hooves

[sofhia]

what animals have hooves

[UglyFace]

Animals with hooves belong to a group known as 'Ungulates'. Essentially these animals walk around on their toes. Some of the most familiar members of the group include sheep, deer, camels, tapirs, giraffe, elephants, rhino and hippopotamus.

[Moog]

Ungulate mammals - which are divided into the orders Perissodactyla [odd toes e.g. rhinoceroses, horses and tapirs] and Artiodactyla [even number of toes e.g. swine, hippopotami, camels, giraffes, deer, bovids [thats cattle, sheep, goats, and buffaloes to you and me]]

[Moog]

Bit of synchronous posting there Uglyface

[New Forester]

Remember that there's no great connection between perissodactyls and artiodactyls -- they just both happen to have hoofs. The term "ungulates" is therefore perhaps rather out of date. Like "dinosaur", "reptile", "tree" and "worm", it's a term which describes how the thing looks, rather than its true ancestral relationship. Other extinct mammals also had hoofs, including I believe some carnivorous ones. (By the way, elephants do not have hoofs and are neither periss- nor artiodactyls.) Also, some "hoofed" mammals do not in fact have hoofs. For example, camels have nail-like hoofs on padded feet, and I think rhinos don't have proper hoofs either. Proper hoofed animals walk on their very toe-tips, most commonly one toe on each leg as in horses, or two as in cloven-hoofed animals such as sheep, pigs, cattle, deer etc. The hoof is like a very thick and strong nail wrapped around the end of the toe, nearly joining at the rear. The animal's weight goes mainly on the edge. Under the hoof layers are more tough layers, which also extend under the central part, where your fingertip would be. These also take some weight, and in some animals, such as goats and chamois, is rubbery in texture. Cloven-hoofed animals walk on two toes, but have two more smaller dew-claw toes on each foot whose hoofs do not usually reach the ground. Modern horses do not have dew-claws, but some extinct ones did.