Pampas deer

Pampas deer ( Ozotoceros bezoarticus )

The Pampas deer ( Ozotoceros bezoarticus ), also called Kamp deer is a deer of South America.

Features

With a body length of 110 to 140 centimeters, a shoulder height of 70 to 75 centimeters and a weight of 25 to 40 kilograms of the Pampas deer is compared with European deer downright dainty. The coat is reddish brown on the upper side and lower side whitish. Each of the antlers of the male has three ends.

Dissemination

The distribution area includes Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay; it overlaps with that of the swamp deer, but the Pampas deer preferred savannah with dry ground. Also, agricultural fields have become the habitat of the Pampas deer.

Way of life

Pampas deer live in small groups of an average of five animals. If the food supply is low, these groups sometimes unite to form loose associations of up to fifty animals that go but at days end apart again. Usually, the pampas deer is diurnal, in populated areas of people but some animals have become crepuscular and nocturnal. To fight rutting male deer pampas to the females. After a gestation period of seven months bring female pampas deer fawn to a single world, which is spotted at birth.

Threat and protection

The Pampas deer was once one of the most common animals in the grasslands of Argentina and Uruguay, the pampas. For the indigenous peoples of southern South America to have been comparable to his role of the North American bison for the local Indians. With the colonization of Argentina by the Europeans the Pampas deer habitat was lost. In order to make room for pastures for their flocks of sheep, Pampa deer were shot down en masse by the settlers. From the IUCN the Pampas deer is still only classified as Near Threatened ( near threatened ). The once widespread in the Argentine Pampa subspecies Ozotoceros bezoarticus celer is considered threatened, the other subspecies Ozotoceros bezoarticus leucogaster (Paraguay ) and Ozotoceros bezoarticus bezoarticus (Brazil, Uruguay) are slightly more common.

Others

The Pampas deer is used by the Argentine province of San Luis as an emblem.