Caribou hooves are the size of dinner plates and act like snowshoes. The animals can survive all winter eating arboreal lichens found on the branches of old-growth trees only accessible in winter.

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 ...

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 ...