Burmese muntjac
| Burmese muntjac | ||||||||||||
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| Muntiacus putaoensis | ||||||||||||
| Amato , Egan & Rabinowitz , 1999 |
The Burma muntjac ( Muntiacus putaoensis ) is a species of deer belonging to the muntjac group .
Burmese muntjacs, weighing around 12 kilograms, are the smallest representatives of the muntjacs and are among the smallest deer species. The antlers, which only the males wear, consist of two short, unbranched poles. In contrast to other muntja cards, no sexual dimorphism in the length of the canine teeth is known in this species . The fur is colored maroon and not patterned.
The range of these animals includes the extreme north of Myanmar , where they live in Kachin State , and the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh . They may also be found in neighboring regions of China . They owe their name to the Myanmar city of Putao , near which the first specimens were found.
The habitat of these animals are forests, they occur at 700 to 1200 meters above sea level. Otherwise little is known about their way of life so far, studies of the stomach contents have shown that they mainly eat fruit.
Like some other species of muntjac, the Burmese muntjac was not described by Western scientists until the 1990s . At first only the stocks in Myanmar were known, only in 2003 the animals were also discovered in India. Hunting and probably also habitat destruction represent the main threats, due to the unclear distribution area - which could be larger than previously known - the IUCN lists the species under “too little data available” ( data deficient ).
literature
- George Amato, Mary G. Egan and Alan Rabinowitz: A new species of muntjac, Muntiacus putaoensis (Artiodactyla: Cervidae) from northern Myanmar. In: Animal Conservation (1999) 2, 1-7. PDF; 88 kB
- Aparajita Datta, Japang Pansa, MD Madhusudan and Charudutt Mishra: Discovery of the leaf deer Muntiacus putaoensis in Arunachal Pradesh: An addition to the large mammals of India. In: Current Science, 84 (3), 2003. PDF; 271 kB
Web links
- Muntiacus putaoensis onthe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species . Retrieved August 19, 2009.