Pronghorn Antelope

Pronghorns are the evolutionary echo of a predator that no longer exists—they can sustain 55 mph speeds and run for miles, far exceeding what any living North American predator requires. This 'over-engineering' is the ghost of the American cheetah (Miracinonyx), which went extinct 10,000 years ago. Pronghorns still run from a predator that's been gone for 400 generations.

This evolutionary mismatch creates fascinating dynamics. Pronghorns waste enormous metabolic resources maintaining speed capabilities no current threat demands. Wolves, coyotes, and cougars can be outrun at half-speed. The pronghorn's excess capacity is either an evolutionary lag that will eventually diminish or a form of insurance against future speed predators that might evolve or be reintroduced.

The business parallel is legacy capabilities maintained against threats that no longer exist. Pronghorns are like companies that maintain competitive defenses against rivals who've exited the market—massive sales forces built to compete with competitors who pivoted, regulatory expertise retained after deregulation, or manufacturing capacity held against offshore competitors who automated. The capability may still provide advantage, but its scale reflects historical rather than current competitive pressure. The pronghorn case suggests these over-investments can persist for thousands of generations if the cost of maintaining them isn't prohibitive.