Thursday, February 12, 2009

Chinese Water Deer

Today is Darwin's 200th birthday.  

Art
goal for the week 13.5 hours
today
ship the new show to Capricon
sanding

Animal
The Chinese water deer (Hydropotes inermis) is a fanged deer from China and Korea. The male Chinese water deer does not have antlers, but does have extremely long canine tusks, often 2 or 3 inches, the females have much shorter canines. The males tusks are somewhat flexible and can be pulled back while grazing or held forward when competing with other males. They are relatively small deer that are only about 3 feet long. They can vocalize and generally make sort of a growling barking noise. They are very prolific deer and can give birth to up to 7 offspring at a time, 2 or 3 is more common. Despite this they are not doing tremendously well in the wild there are estimated to be only around 10,000 of them in the wild. There are also a feral populations of these deer in England and France.

No comments:

Post a Comment