With heavily muscled bodies, skinny legs, and strong hooves that balloon to the size of dinner plates come winter, mountain caribou — the "mountain ecotype" of the woodland caribou — are well adapted ...

This is a reference to the caribou's wide hooves, which make it possible to walk in deep snow. DESCRIPTION: Mountain caribou are the largest subspecies of caribou, with males approaching 600 pounds ...

Caribou have long legs ... They have large and wide hooves that are good for walking in snow. They also use their hooves to dig through ice-packed snow to find plants and lichen on the tundra ...