The sika deer, also known as the flower deer, is named after the many plum-like white spots that are clearly arranged in rows on both sides of the dorsal ridge and on the lower edge of the body. It prefers to inhabit mixed forests, montane grasslands and forest edges, and generally does not enter dense forests. In winter, it is mostly in the low and low leeward slopes of the sun slope, and in the spring and autumn, it is active in the open area with few trees. Summers like to be shady, mostly in the open and ventilated places on the shady slopes, and sometimes to avoid mosquito and fly bites also to the alpine grassland activities. Alert temperament, morning and dusk. It feeds mainly on grasses, shoots, leaves, sand ginseng, and mushrooms. It is widely distributed in northeastern Asia, from the Ussuri River in Siberia to northern Vietnam, the island of Taiwan and the Japanese archipelago. In China, it is mainly distributed in Northeast China, Sichuan, South China and Taiwan Island, and there are 6 subspecies of sika deer, of which the Shanxia species, the North China subspecies and the Taiwan subspecies have become extinct in the wild. Wild sika deer are very rare and are first-class protected animals in China.
In the winter, people will find that the white spots of the sika deer are gone, because the coat color of the sika deer, like most animals, changes with the seasons. As the weather cools down day by day, the animals are coated with thick, dense fluff, as do the sika deer. When the sika deer changes its hair twice a year, when it changes from winter hair to summer hair, there are many white pigments in some of the hair on the body, so it forms white hair. Because the summer hair is reddish brown or dark grayish brown and the hair on the whole body is relatively thin, the spots formed by these white hairs are particularly obvious, so everyone can clearly see the pattern like plum blossoms. When changing winter hair from summer hair, because the white hair is reduced, and the hair base color of the whole body is smoky brown, the winter hair is long, thick and dense, so the plum blossom is blurred.
Female deer have no antlers, and the male deer has a pair of majestic solid horns on their heads. There are a total of 4 branches on the horns, the eyebrow and the main stem form a blunt angle, protruding forward at the near base, the second branch and the eyebrow branch are more distant, the position is higher, often mistaken for no secondary branch, the trunk at its end is again divided into two small branches. Every year in April, the old antlers of the stags fall off and the new antlers begin to grow. The surface of the newborn antlers is wrapped in a layer of brownish yellow velvet skin, densely covered with blood vessels. In September, the antlers begin to gradually ossify, the epidermis is completely shed, and the hard and smooth antlers are completely exposed.
It's not just sika deer that grow plum blossoms
There is also a common deer in the wild that is very similar to the sika deer, that is, the tiān deer. Wild moose native to the Two Rivers Basin and the Mediterranean Region, the upper class preference for deer hunting, the spread of the deer to Australia, North and South America and Africa and many other regions. In order to hide their own needs, the vast majority of deer will appear in various patterns of coat color as a protective color in the juvenile period with limited mobility, and most of them will fade after adulthood. However, a small number of deer will still have patterns on their bodies until adulthood, and this is true of sika deer and moose. Deer and sika deer are similar in shape, especially they have plum-shaped white spots on their bodies. To distinguish between them, you have to look for these details very carefully.
somatotype
The male is 140 to 160 cm long, 90 to 100 cm shoulder height, and weighs 55 to 70 kg; the female is slightly smaller, with a body length of 130 to 150 cm, shoulder height of 75 to 85 cm, and a weight of 40 to 45 kg. The sika deer is a circle larger, and the weight is nearly twice that of the deer.
antlers
Squid deer (left) and sika deer (right)
Both the stag and the sika deer are antlers that only the bucks have. They all have multiple forks in their horns, but the differences are obvious. The upper horns of the deer are flattened or palm-shaped; the horns of the sika deer are standard dendritic.
In winter when the antlers fall off, or when facing a doe that does not have horns, it can be distinguished by the coat color of the tail and skin:
tail
The "black brackets" on the butt of the deer and the "several" characters of the sika deer
Both the tail of the deer and the sika deer are short, but the tail of the deer is slightly longer than that of the sika deer. However, it is difficult to distinguish without comparison, and the obvious difference between the two is the hips. The hair on each side of the deer's rump has a curved black stripe, which looks like a thick black bracket covering the tail, while the sika deer's ass coat color is mainly black and white, and the black edges on both sides of the white part are slightly extended outwards, like a few words. The deer's fur is brownish yellow in summer with white spots, and in winter it becomes gray-black with gray-black markings and a white lower abdomen. The body hair of the deer is brownish yellow or chestnut red in summer and smoky brown in winter.
Call
fallow deer
The call of the sika deer and the call of the deer (both mainly refer to the male call) are very different, the sika deer's call is high-pitched and loud, the voice is long and round, and the call of the deer is low and thick, and the voice is short and powerful. For the deer, the first tool to seize the mate may not be the antlers, but the call of the male deer. Unlike other deer, the process of courtship in the moose is known as a "courtship show in groups". In the courtship area, many male deer call frequently, and in extreme cases it can even reach 3,000 chirps per hour. Whether it is a female deer in the vicinity or a male deer in a competitive state, the physical state of the deer can be judged by these sounds.
Bleached Deer
In addition, there are several varieties of sika deer, such as blackening and albinism, while the sika deer variant is relatively rare.
This article is the original of the Encyclopedia of China database, and its reproduction must be authorized.