BOOK ANSWERS ALL QUESTIONS ABOUT DEER
by Whit Gibbons
January 22, 2012
Do deer fight? Do they engage in play? Do they make vocalizations? According to a new book, "Deer: The Animal Answer Guide" (2012) by George A. Feldhamer and William J. McShea, as is often true in science, the answer to all three questions is a qualified yes, or in other words, it depends. In this case, it depends in part on which of the approximately 50 species of deer you are referring to.
"Deer" is the latest in the highly informative Animal Answer Guide series published by Johns Hopkins University Press. As with other books in the series, answers are provided for more than 100 questions about the animals under discussion, in this case, deer. In the section on behavior, the authors explain that young ones are the most likely to engage in play, either among themselves or with their mother. Yearling males of some species will engage in mock battles with older males. The most dramatic real fights occur between antlered males that charge head-on at each other during the mating season. White-tailed deer, the well-known species of the eastern United States, are not noted for making sounds beyond snorts and grunts, but some deer do produce vocalizations. Bull elk in the western United States, which are considered by many mammalogists to be the same species as the red deer of Europe, and fallow deer of the Middle East make a bugling sound during the mating season. Old World roe deer bark when danger threatens.
What are the largest and smallest species of deer? American elk bulls are huge, averaging close to a half ton with a shoulder height near five feet. Bull moose are even larger. The largest moose on record weighed more than 1,800 pounds and stood over seven feet high at the shoulder. On a much smaller scale, white-tailed bucks average about four feet at the shoulder and few reach 300 pounds. The smallest deer in the world, being a little over 12 inches high and weighing in at less than 20 pounds, is a tiny creature called the southern pudu of South America. Male deer of most species are larger than females.
Having antlers is one of the traits that make deer distinctive from horned animals in the antelope family, including cows, goats, sheep, and bison. Antlers differ from horns in several notable ways. First, antlers are made of bone that branches as it grows out from the skull each year. Antlers are deciduous, typically being shed in the winter and regrowing in spring and summer. Horns in contrast are made of fibrous material that does not branch and that keeps growing for the life of the animal. Also, females as well as males in many members of the antelope family have horns. Caribou (reindeer) are the only species of deer in which prominent antlers are characteristically found in both sexes. The Chinese water deer is the only species without antlers. Instead, males of these small deer have scary looking canine teeth that can be up to three inches long and project downward from the upper jaw.
Characteristic of the Animal Answer Guide series, the book is divided into a dozen chapters with topics such as food and feeding, deer and humans, and deer in art and literature. Likewise, the authors answer many frequently asked questions about deer. For example, can deer see color? how high can deer jump? and should people feed deer? In brief, the answers are deer can see part of the color spectrum but probably not "the blaze-orange color that hunters wear"; a white-tailed deer can jump a fence eight feet high; and generally, no, people should not feed wild deer.
The authors also answer some not so frequently asked questions, such as what should I do if I find a fawn? and how will deer be affected by global climate change? To find the answers to these and many other questions, get a copy of "Deer: The Animal Answer Guide" from a bookstore or your local library.
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