Berber deer
| Berber deer | ||||||||||||
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Berber deer in Tierpark Berlin |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Cervus elaphus barbarus | ||||||||||||
| Bennett , 1833 |
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The Berber deer ( Cervus elaphus barbarus ), also known as the atlas deer , is a subspecies of the red deer . He represents the only recent member of the deer family in Africa.
description
The head-trunk length is 190 cm, the shoulder height 130 to 140 cm in the males. The females are smaller. The weight is up to 70 kg for the females and up to 200 kg for the males. The antlers reach a length of 80 to 90 cm. The winter coat is dark gray-brown, with long and woolly hair. The summer coat is reddish-brown, thin and the female has more or less visible ivory-colored spots arranged in longitudinal lines. The young are very spotted.
distribution
The Berber deer is common in the Atlas Mountains in the north-west of Algeria and in the north of Tunisia . In 1994 he was resettled in Morocco, where he was exterminated in 1932.
Danger
It was almost exterminated due to uncontrolled hunting. In 1961 only a few hundred individuals were estimated. Thanks to strict protective measures and the absence of predators such as the Berber leopard , the Berber lion and the atlas bear , the population recovered to 1,300 individuals in 1983. Today it is no longer considered to be directly endangered with a population of 5000 copies. The Berber deer share their habitat with introduced red deer from Spain and the calves occasionally fall prey to wild boars.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kock, D. and Schomber, HW (1961). Contribution to the knowledge of the distribution and the population of the Atlas deer (Cervus elaphus barbarus) as well as a comment on its antler formation. Suction. Mitt. 9: 51-54.
literature
- Harper, Francis: Extinct and Vanishing Mammals of the Old World , 1945. pp. 457–459 ( online version )
- Geist, Valerius: Deer of the World: Their Evolution, Behavior, and Ecology , B&T, 1998. ISBN 978-081-170-496-0 . P. 207
Web links
- Cervus elaphus barbarus ( Memento from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (Spanish; PDF file)
- Inclusion of Cervus elaphus barbarus (Atlas deer) in Appendix I of CITES ( Memento from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (with a description of the species; PDF file; 23 kB)