Caspian red deer | |
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Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Artiodactyla |
Family: | Cervidae |
Subfamily: | Cervinae |
Genus: | Cervus |
Species: | |
Subspecies: | C. e. maral |
Trinomial name | |
Cervus elaphus maral (Gray, 1850) |
The Caspian red deer (Cervus elaphus maral), is one of the easternmost subspecies of red deer that is native to areas between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea such as Crimea, Asia Minor, the Caucasus Mountains region bordering Europe and Asia, and along the Caspian Sea region in Iran. [2] The Caspian red deer is sometimes referred to as maral, noble deer, or eastern red deer. [3] [4]
The Caspian red deer is a subspecies of the red deer.
The Caspian red deer is around 4 feet 6 inches (1.37 m) tall, and can weigh 500 to 700 pounds (230 to 320 kg). Their antlers are around 4 feet (1.2 m) in length, and 6 inches (150 mm) in girth. [4] Its coat is dark gray, except in the summer, when it is a dark brown. They shed their antlers in late winter and their new antlers reach full growth in late summer. One, occasionally two, fawns are born in mid-spring. The fawns are reddish brown with white spots. [5]
The Caspian red deer is a social and primarily nocturnal animal. It eats a variety of grasses and leaves and occasionally berries and mushrooms. [5]
The Caspian red deer has been domesticated in the 2nd century. [3]
Within Russia, the Caspian red deer has been hunted for velvet antlers since the 1930s. [6] Historically, demand for velvet antlers from Asia was met by organized deer farms in the Soviet Union. [7] Hunting by humans have been noted as the cause for decreases in population. The approximate number of Caspian red deer in eastern Georgia dropped from 2,500 in 1985 to 880 in 1994. [8] Their primary predators include Persian leopards and, to a lesser extent, wolves and brown bears. [5] In the past they were also hunted by the now-extinct Caspian tiger.
A deer or true deer is a hoofed ruminant ungulate of the family Cervidae. Cervidae is divided into subfamilies Cervinae and Capreolinae. Male deer of almost all species, as well as female reindeer, grow and shed new antlers each year. These antlers are bony extensions of the skull and are often used for combat between males.
The sika deer, also known as the Northernspotted deer or the Japanese deer, is a species of deer native to much of East Asia and introduced to other parts of the world. Previously found from northern Vietnam in the south to the Russian Far East in the north, it is an uncommon species that has been extirpated in most areas of its native range, except in Japan, where it is overabundant and present in very large numbers.
Eld's deer, also known as the thamin or brow-antlered deer, is an endangered species of deer endemic to South and Southeast Asia.
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Thorold's deer is a threatened species of deer found in the grassland, shrubland, and forest habitats, at high altitudes, of the eastern Tibetan Plateau, as well as some fragmented areas further north in central Western China. It is also known as the white-lipped deer for the white fur around its snout.
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The Elburz Range forest steppe ecoregion is an arid, mountainous 1,000-kilometer arc south of the Caspian Sea, stretching across northern Iran from the Azerbaijan border to near the Turkmenistan border. It covers 63,300 square kilometres (24,400 sq mi) and encompasses the southern and eastern slopes of the Alborz Mountains as well as their summits. The Caspian Hyrcanian mixed forests ecoregion's lush green mountainsides and plains receive moisture from the Caspian Sea from this ecoregion's northern border. The vast Central Persian desert basins ecoregion forms its southern border.
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