Harrington's mountain goat (''Oreamnos harringtoni'') was a species of caprine that resided in the Southwest of North America during the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

epoch. A relative of the modern

mountain goat The mountain goat (''Oreamnos americanus''), also known as the Rocky Mountain goat, is a cloven-footed mammal that is endemic to the remote and rugged mountainous areas of western North America. A subalpine to truly alpine species, it is a s ...

, which is the only existing species in the genus '' Oreamnos'', ''O. harringtoni'' became extinct around 11,000 BC.

Fossil record

Harrington's mountain goat was first described in the 1930s by

paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

Chester Stock. Stock based his initial description on finds of skull fragments and metapodial bones from Smith Creek Cave in the

Great Basin The Great Basin () is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets to the ocean, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja Californi ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

. In 1937 he authored a ''Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences'' article titled "A new mountain goat from the Quaternary of Smith Creek Cave, Nevada". Later finds in Mexico, Colorado, Nevada,

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

, and the

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a mile (). The canyon and adjacent rim are contained within Grand Canyon Nati ...

have included intact skulls, metapodials,

keratinous Keratin () is one of a family of structural fibrous proteins also known as ''scleroproteins''. It is the key structural material making up Scale (anatomy), scales, hair, Nail (anatomy), nails, feathers, horn (anatomy), horns, claws, Hoof, hoove ...

horn sheaths, dung, hair, muscle and ligament.

Characteristics

Harrington's mountain goat was smaller than today's mountain goats, and had a longer, narrower face accompanied by thinner, smaller horns. Dung finds suggest that the goats frequented caves in the Grand Canyon during spring and possibly late winter and early summer. Their diet seems to have consisted of both grasses and browsing of

conifers Conifers () are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All e ...

such as

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' ( ), a genus of about 40 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal (taiga) regions of the Northern hemisphere. ''Picea'' ...

Douglas fir The Douglas fir (''Pseudotsuga menziesii'') is an evergreen conifer species in the pine family, Pinaceae. It is the tallest tree in the Pinaceae family. It is native to western North America and is also known as Douglas-fir, Douglas spruce, Or ...

, limber pine, and water birch.

Extinction

Harrington's mountain goat existed for at least 19,000 years prior to disappearing around 11,000 BC. The extinction is known to have coincided with the disappearance of at least 25 genera of land mammals, such as the Shasta ground sloth (''Nothrotheriops shastensis''), and the arrival of Native American hunters of the

Clovis culture The Clovis culture is an archaeological culture from the Paleoindian period of North America, spanning around 13,050 to 12,750 years Before Present (BP). The type site is Blackwater Draw locality No. 1 near Clovis, New Mexico, where stone too ...

in the region.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q16982785 Prehistoric caprids Pleistocene Artiodactyla Pleistocene mammals of North America Fossil taxa described in 1936