One North American mammal, the pronghorn or "pronghorn antelope", is colloquially referred to as the "American antelope", despite the fact that it belongs to a different family (Antilocapridae) than the true Old-World antelopes; pronghorn are the sole extant member of a lineage that once included many species which went extinct in the prehistoric period.

Although antelopes are sometimes misidentified as "deer" (cervids),