External glands occur in various places on artiodactyls. Preorbital glands, immediately in front of the eyes, are present in the giant forest hog (Hylochoerus meinertzhageni), in all cervids except the roe deer, and, among the bovids, in duikers, many neotragines, gazelles and their allies, and the hartebeest group. These glands are apparently required in small forest forms and have disappeared in many, but not all, open-country forms. In some, the glands are definitely connected with territorial marking; a firm object is marked by rubbing, soft vegetation by swinging the head gently from side to side. Foot, or pedal, glands are present in the African bush pig (Potamochoerus porcus), camels, tragulids, the pronghorn, some bovids, and on the back legs only of most American deer.

Inguinal (belly) glands are found in bovids, there being two in sheep, saiga, chiru, gazelles, duikers, and blackbuck, and four in members of the tribes Reduncini and Tragelaphini. Carpal (wrist) glands are present in some pigs, some gazelles and allies, and the oribi (Ourebia ourebi). Glands in other positions are rather less frequent, but postcornual ones (behind the horns) occur in the Rocky Mountain goat, the pronghorn, and the chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra), supraorbital ones in muntjacs (several species of Muntiacus). There are jaw glands in the pronghorn; neck glands in camels; dorsal glands on the back of peccaries, pronghorn, and springbok; and preputial glands (in front of the genital region) in several pigs, grysbok (Raphicerus melanotis), and the musk deer. Tail glands are found in musk deer, pronghorn, and goats; tarsal glands in pronghorn and American deer; and metatarsal glands in camels, some deer, and the impala. Pronghorn, blackbuck, gazelles, and oribi are thus particularly well equipped with glands. The use of such glands, apart from the use of preorbital glands in some species for territorial marking, is a matter for conjecture. Chital deer, when alarmed, thump the ground several times with their hind feet, which possess glands; the scent remaining on the ground may function as a danger signal. In general, mammals often mark with their glands when they are threatening other individuals of their own species.

Digestive system

The higher artiodactyls feed only on plant matter, which consists largely of cellulose and other carbohydrates and water. This necessitates adaptations of the structure and functioning of the stomach and intestines. Even pigs have enlarged stomachs—they have a pouch near the cardiac orifice (the upper opening) of the stomach—and in peccaries the stomach is more complicated. In hippopotamuses the stomach is divided into four compartments, and micro-organisms ferment food as part of the digestive process. Unlike pigs, hippopotamuses have lost the cecum (a blind pouch) further on in the gut.

In the most advanced ruminants, the much enlarged stomach consists of four parts. These include the large rumen (or paunch), the reticulum, the omasum (psalterium or manyplies)—which are all believed to be derived from the esophagus—and the abomasum (or reed), which corresponds to the stomach of other mammals. The omasum is almost absent in chevrotains. Camels have a three-chambered stomach, lacking the separation of omasum and abomasum; the rumen and reticulum are equipped with glandular pockets separated by muscular walls having sphincters (valves) and glands. The esophagus opens into the rumen, not into the area between rumen and reticulum; these and other differences suggest that camels evolved the ruminating habit independently of the true ruminants. The total stomach of the domestic ox (Bos taurus) occupies nearly three-quarters of the abdominal cavity, and, even in medium-sized cattle, the rumen alone can have a capacity of 95 to 285 litres (25 to 75 gallons), having undergone a tremendous growth in early life, with the changeover from a milk diet.

Food taken into the rumen is later regurgitated into the mouth and completely masticated, then swallowed again and passed to the reticulum, omasum, and abomasum. The regurgitation and chewing in the mouth is called rumination.

In the rumen many different species of minute protozoans (animals) and bacteria live without free oxygen. The digestion of the cellulose of plant cell walls is the main function of the fauna and flora in the rumen, since mammalian digestive juices are incapable of digesting cellulose. The contents of the plant cells are thus released for digestion. Large volumes of saliva are secreted into the rumen to help digestion. Soluble products of microbial action, mainly fatty acids, are absorbed through the rumen wall. In the omasum, some fatty acids and 60–70 percent of the water are absorbed; in the abomasum gastric juice containing hydrochloric acid is secreted, as in an ordinary mammalian stomach.

In the rumen any ingested protein is degraded into fatty acids and ammonia; the ammonia and other simple nitrogen-containing substances are used by the micro-organisms for their own cell-protein synthesis. These organisms are ultimately digested in the abomasum and small intestine, thus providing the ruminant with protein.

Many artiodactyls are adapted to living in conditions of water shortage. The best known and one of the most spectacular examples of this is the camel. Its body temperature can fluctuate according to the outside temperature, thus minimizing water loss through sweating; it excretes rather dry dung and a concentrated urine (i.e., high in urea and low in water) and is not seriously weakened by as much as a 25 percent dehydration in its body, since water is not withdrawn from the bloodstream and the continuing circulation avoids any buildup of excessive internal temperatures. The thick coat hinders the inward transference of heat from the environment (the temperature of which may often exceed the animal’s body temperature); a thirsty camel can take in water very rapidly. Oryxes and gazelles are antelopes noted for needing little water, the dorcas gazelle (Gazella dorcas) in the Sudan depending on leaves of Acacia bushes for its water. The zebu (a form of domesticated cattle) needs less water than most temperate climate breeds.

Reproductive specializations

The testes of male artiodactyls descend outside the body cavity but may regress into the abdomen in the nonbreeding season. Female pigs have many teats, but ruminants have only two to four (although domestic cattle occasionally have as many as six). Among the bovids, the alcelaphines (hartebeests, wildebeests, and relatives), gazelles, and some caprines (sheep, goats, and relatives) have two, the rest have four.

The unborn mammal within its mother breathes, feeds, and excretes through an organ called the placenta, which is connected with the tissues of the mother’s uterus (womb) wall. Hippopotamuses and pigs have an epitheliochorial placenta, a layer of fetal tissue merely pressed close against the uterus wall, but camels and ruminants possess a syndesmochorial placenta, in which the epithelium of the maternal tissues is eroded to facilitate intercommunication. This is an advance over the epitheliochorial placenta, but the artiodactyls are not particularly advanced, when compared with other mammals, in which there may be still closer association of maternal and fetal blood vessels (endothelial and hemochorial placentas). Even in many syndesmochorial placentas the uterus lining may be wholly or partly restored before the end of pregnancy. Although there is no erosion of maternal tissues in the epitheliochorial placenta, the capillaries beneath the fetal and maternal surface layers may pass just beneath the surface layers, making them thin. The actual fingerlike processes (villi), through which the placenta contacts the uterus, are evenly distributed (“diffuse” placentas) in hippopotamuses, pigs, camels, and tragulids; in higher artiodactyls they are in pockets or groups called cotyledons (“cotyledonary” placentas). It is interesting that there are few of these cotyledons in deer—for instance only five in Père David’s deer—but many in giraffes and bovids (up to 160 or 180 in giraffes and goats). The musk deer (Moschus moschiferus) is exceptional among deer in retaining a diffuse placenta.