Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Ruminantia Scientific classification Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Order: Artiodactyla Suborder: Ruminantia The biological suborder Ruminantia includes many of the well-known large grazing or browsing mammals: among them cattle, goats, sheep, deer, and antelope. All members of the Ruminantia are ruminants: they digest food in two steps, chewing and swallowing in the normal way to begin with, and then regurgitating the semi-digested cud to re-chew it and thus extract the maximum possible food value. Note that not all ruminants belong to the Ruminantia. Camels and llamas are an obvious exception, and there are a number of other large grazing mammals that, while not strictly ruminants, have similar adaptations for surviving on large quantities of low-grade food. Kangaroos and horses are examples. ORDER ARTIODACTYLA Suborder Suina: pigs, hippos and peccaries Suborder Tylopoda: camels and llamas Suborder Ruminantia Family Tragulidae: chevrotains Family Moschidae: musk deer Family Cervidae: deer Family Giraffidae: Giraffe and Okapi Family Antilocapridae: Pronghorn Family Bovidae: cattle, goats, sheep, and antelope This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.