The po deer (Latin scientific name: Cervus eldii) is a genus of Indian deer, similar in appearance to the sika deer, but smaller in size and less spotted. The coat is yellowish brown, reddish brown or tan, and the dorsal midline is blackish brown. There is a row of white spots on each side of the dorsal ridge.
The deer prefers to eat grass and young branches and leaves, and is a herbivorous animal. It inhabits hilly and grassy slopes, distributed in Southeast Asia and Hainan Island in China, and is a national first-class protected animal.
There are 3 subspecies.
Po deer
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >, appearance characteristics</h1>
Slope deer are medium-sized deer. The shape is similar to that of the sika deer, but it is smaller, has fewer spots, and has a more slender neck, body and limbs, which is particularly robust. The general body length is about 160 cm, the shoulder height is 104 to 110 cm, and the weight is 70 to 130 kg.
The body hair is generally russet brown to yellowish brown, the back color is darker, and there is a longitudinal black-brown ridge stripe from the neck to the base of the tail in the center of the back, and the stripes are dotted with white flower-shaped spots on both sides, each spot is the size of a copper coin, the spacing is about 3 cm, and there are also a few white spots on the buttocks. The coat color of the male is darker than that of the female, especially during the mating season, which is more intense. In the late autumn and early winter, the whole body is replaced by long and thick winter hair, the dorsal midline is black and brown, and there is a column of white spots on each side of the dorsal ridge, and the white spots have faded and disappeared almost completely, until the following spring, when these spots gradually appear again. The body color is lighter on the body side and the outside of the limbs, and the abdomen and the inside of the limbs are grayish white. The face and the back of the ears are yellowish brown, the ear margins are black, and the inside of the ears is white. The back of the tail is chestnut brown and the ventral surface is white or light brown .
The stag has horns, and the first eyebrow fork protrudes flat from the base to the anterior side, almost curved and bowed to the trunk. Adult deer winter hair spots are not obvious body shape is narrow, the neck and limbs are also relatively slender, the dorsal hyena is not obvious, the main hoof is narrow and pointed, and the side hoof is small. The female has no horns on her head, and the male has a special shape for the upper part of her head, with a large eyebrow that grows forward and then bends slightly upwards, while the trunk is first backwards, then curved upwards, and stretched forward. There is no fork under the trunk, it seems that there is no secondary fork, three forks, in fact, the position of the fork is higher, and it grows to the upper end of the trunk. The trunk is connected to the eyebrow branch to form a large angle arc, almost curved and bow-shaped, and there are 3-6 small tips of different lengths and lengths at the upper end, which are obviously different from sika deer and other deer. The length of the horns is about 100 cm or more, the thickness is 12-13 cm, the angular tips are more than 78 cm apart, and the eyebrow branches are also very long, up to 45 cm.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > second, habitat</h1>
It inhabits low hills and plains below 200 meters above sea level, and prefers to gather in small river valleys.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > third, life habits</h1>
1. Activities
Po deer prefer to roost, but the males with long horns mostly act alone. Pairs or groups of 3-5 can usually be seen in groups of grassy slopes and wet fields along streams or ravines, as well as in fire-burning sites, mainly females and pups. During the period of estrus spouses, the cluster phenomenon is more pronounced, with about 12 or so at the most. Foraging activities are mostly in the morning and evening, especially after heavy rains. It is drought and heat tolerant, and although it prefers to forage near watery meadows, it has not been found to bathe or mud bath. It is said that in the past, when there were many deer on the slope, they often foraged during the day, and even approached or mixed with the herds of herding livestock, but later forced to move in the morning and at night due to the influence of people's activities.
2. Eating habits
The main food of the deer is grass and young branches and leaves, such as bamboo grass, butyl grass, chicken occupation, magpie kidney, etc., but also eats crops such as banzi leaves, young rice seedlings, cane seedlings, etc., especially like to eat water weeds that grow near the water or swamp. In addition, it regularly licks salt alkaline soil to replenish minerals and salts needed by the body.
3. Foraging
Po Deer's vision and hearing are very sharp, and they run very quickly, especially good at jumping. Alertness is also very high when foraging, every two or three bites of food will raise their heads to look around, listen to the movements in the wilderness, and after eating in a hurry, they will go into hiding. Once the enemy is spotted, it immediately gallops away, even if it is several meters high trees, bushes or ditches several meters wide, it can jump through, so there are many legends about it "flying". Because most of the deer are also distributed in the production area of the po deer, it is also said that the sambar deer likes to bite the antler horns of the po deer, so the two deer are never mixed. In fact, the habitat of the sambar deer is mainly in the foothills of the higher elevations, while the area of activity of the slope deer is different.
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > four, growth and reproduction</h1>
Po Deer is polygamous. Females can continue to breed from the age of 2 until the age of 10. The estrus period of po deer is winter and early spring every year, the breeding period is from February to May of each year, the gestation period is 225-342 days, and one litter per year, 1-2 po deer per litter. The deer are weaned 4-6 months after birth and sexually mature at 2 years of age. The young are mainly fed by females, and the males, although living in groups, rarely participate.
Because the estrus period of the po deer has entered the rainy season, the trees are budding, the wild grasses are strong, and the food is very rich, so that its body gradually fattens. The males fought fiercely for their mates, often with scales, and the winner mated with the female and stayed with them until the end of the estrus period, leaving behind stronger offspring.
In late May, after the mating and mating, the males continue to live alone, and then in June and July, they shed their old dull branches and horns, and from the horns they begin to grow new mushrooms wrapped in soft skin like velvet. Deer antler velvet is the most abundant around October, after which the skin ruptures and falls off, the antler horn gradually horned, showing a dark brown luster, and the complex grooves on the surface of the horns are traces of blood vessels in the antler period. In the following summer, the old horns fell off again, and so on and so on.
The maximum known age for males is 14 years and for females is 19 years.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > five, species distribution</h1>
China: East, white sand in the southwest of Hainan Island.
Abroad: Cambodia, India, Laos, Myanmar.
Probable extinction: Thailand, Vietnam.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >6</h1>
1. Protection level
Appendix I to the CITES Convention: List of Protections;
Protected animals at the national level;
IUCN 2008 Red List of Threatened Species ver 3.1 – Endangered.1.
2. Population status
In China, for po deer, there are more and more seekers, and po deer are therefore less and less. A few decades ago, po deer were distributed in the low-hilly plain scrub areas of Dongfang, Changjiang, Baisha, Yaxian, Ledong, Danxian, Qiongzhong, Tunchang and other counties on Hainan Island. Due to the rapid destruction of the habitat environment and the intensive hunting of people, the distribution of the deer has gradually shrunk from patches to two points: one is the Bang creek of the white sand, and the other is the field in the east, which is fifty or sixty in total.
In India, as early as the 1950s, the po deer was once thought to be extinct, but then the po deer population was discovered. In 2003, a census of slope deer numbers showed that there were about 180 wild deer in the wild, and about 180 deer were also kept in captivity.
In Cambodia, the number of porcupine deer is higher, but even so, in the period 1998-2008, the species has declined by 90% or more, and in the 10-15 years after 2008, the number of species will decline by at least 50%.
Similarly, the number of po deer in Laos and Myanmar is also declining year by year, while the po deer in Thailand and Vietnam may be extinct.
3. Species protection
In 1976, Guangdong Province, China, established two provincial nature reserves, Datian and Bangxi, and set up two protection stations to protect po deer. Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar have also established protected areas to protect slope deer; Thailand has begun to try artificial breeding due to late conservation measures; India has also set up captive deer in captivity with a view to restoring the population of slope deer.