Mesopotamian fallow deer

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Mesopotamian fallow deer
A male Mesopotamian Fallow Deer in Mount Carmel Nature Preserve, Israel

A male Mesopotamian Fallow Deer in Mount Carmel Nature Preserve, Israel

Systematics
without rank: Forehead weapon bearer (Pecora)
Family : Deer (Cervidae)
Subfamily : Cervinae
Tribe : Real deer (Cervini)
Genre : Fallow deer ( dama )
Type : Mesopotamian fallow deer
Scientific name
Dama mesopotamica
( Brooke , 1875)

The Mesopotamian fallow deer or Mesopotamian fallow deer ( Dama mesopotamica ) is a deer native to the Middle East that is only found in Iran and Israel today . It has been on the IUCN Red List as a critically endangered species since 2008 . Following a captive breeding program, the population has recovered from just a handful of deer in the 1960s to over 1,000 today. He was successfully released back into the wild.

features

The Mesopotamian fallow deer reaches a head-trunk length of 180 to 190 cm in males and 160 to 170 cm in cows. The tail is 16 to 20 cm long. The shoulder height is 100 to 110 cm for the males and 90 cm for the females. The weight is 120 to 140 kg for the bulls and 70 to 80 kg for the cows. Adult males are on average 50 percent heavier than females. The Mesopotamian fallow deer is larger than the European fallow deer with slight differences in coat color which is slightly darker. The antlers have a different shape, the shovels, which fan out the upper antler rod of the fallow deer, are less pronounced and indented more deeply due to clearer sprouting. It has very short eye rungs, ice rungs and middle rungs, whereby the ice rungs are often missing. Instead, there are short accessory sprouts that usually start just above the eye sprout. In this characteristic, the Mesopotamian fallow deer resembles the extinct Pleistocene form Dama geiselana , which in turn had a more clearly formed shovel antler. The antlers of the Mesopotamian fallow deer are shorter than those of the European fallow deer, about 50 to 55 cm long and more robust. The dark upper edge of the coccyx is less developed and the shorter tail is whitish, except for the very thin black central line. The dark nasal mirror has a slightly different shape.

Systematics

Internal systematics of the Cervini according to Hughes et al. 2006
 Cervini  

  Dama  

 Dama mesopotamica


   

 Dama dama



   

 Megaloceros (†)



   



 Panolia


   

 Elaphurus



   

 Cervus



   

 Rucervus


   

 Axis





Template: Klade / Maintenance / Style

The Mesopotamian fallow deer is a species from the genus of fallow deer ( Dama ), which also contains the fallow deer ( Dama dama ) , which is more common in Europe . The genus belongs to the deer family (Cervidae) and within this to the subfamily of the Cervinae . The genetically closest relative of the fallow deer is found in the genus Megaloceros , to which the giant deer ( Megaloceros giganteus ) is counted (this species has been genetically tested). The two lines were probably separated as early as the Middle or Upper Miocene . The togetherness had been partially assumed earlier due to the shovel-like antlers common to both genera; it is also supported by another morphological feature, the shape of the inner ear bones .

The Mesopotamian fallow deer was described by Victor Brooke in 1875 as the Cervus (Dama) mesopotamicus . Afterwards it was considered a subspecies of the fallow deer for a long time , until in the 2000s current systematics changed over to recognizing it as an independent species. However, its taxonomic status remains controversial. A molecular genetic study from 2012 came to the conclusion that the Mesopotamian fallow deer is genetically similar, but morphologically different to the fallow deer. Both forms differ in terms of microsatellite loci and mitochondrial genes. Based on the latter, investigations of the d-loop area in 2008 estimated the separation of the lines leading to the Mesopotamian fallow deer and the European fallow deer to be around 400,000 years. In contrast, analyzes of cytochrome b and more extensive sections of mitochondrial DNA shift this splitting into the Lower Pliocene and partly also into the Upper Miocene around 4 to 9 million years ago.

distribution

Prehistoric and historical distribution

In the Pleistocene , when man colonized Europe, fallow deer may have been common in Mesopotamia , the Levant, and Anatolia . The Anatolian population seems to have coexisted with the European fallow deer, which still survives there today, and to have formed hybrid populations with them. There is a presumption that the Mesopotamian fallow deer belonged to the menagerie animals introduced into Egypt during the time of the pharaohs. Some researchers suggest that the deer was common throughout the Middle East in the 16th or 17th centuries.

The range of the deer varied over the millennia. Presumably, the Mesopotamian fallow deer formed in the course of the Middle Pleistocene in the eastern Mediterranean region and set itself apart from the Dama clactoniana, which is further west . It is discussed whether the form Dama geiselana, which was widespread in Central Europe during the same period, had an influence on the development of the Mesopotamian fallow deer. The early representatives differ somewhat from today's animals, for example in the way they sprout. In the Young Pleistocene , the Mesopotamian fallow deer formed a dominant species at some sites in the Levant, such as the important Tabun cave used in the Neanderthal period . There, in layer B alone, over 1720 bone remains from 78 individuals were found, which corresponds to a good two thirds of all animal bones found. Presumably the fallow deer died of natural causes in the cave because it acted as a trap. Remains of the Mesopotamian fallow deer were also found in the older layers C and D, which in their age correspond to the late Middle Pleistocene, albeit with three and eleven individuals in significantly fewer numbers. The bones show clear cuts here, indicating that the carcasses were used by early humans. According to zoo archaeological studies, fallow deer became extinct in the south of Israel during the Natufien period of Israel about 15,000 to 9500 years ago, although gazelles and, above all, roe deer increased. It is believed that this is due to climate change combined with changing land use patterns and hunting pressures. During the early Iron Age around 1300 to 1200 BC BC Fallow deer were an important species that were sacrificed at the altar on Mount Ebal near the city of Nablus in the northern West Bank. The fallow deer in the region at the time were larger, the surviving populations have evolved into smaller animals.

Fallow deer were introduced by humans to Cyprus about 10,000 years ago, in the pre-ceramic Neolithic , and spread rapidly when the island's native megafauna became extinct, such as the endemic dwarf elephants of the species Palaeoloxodon cypriotes and dwarfed hippos of the species Hippopotamus minor . Although there were cows, sheep, goats, pigs, dogs, and cats, it is believed that the prehistoric Cypriots in some way guarded the deer associations or even domesticated the animal for the next millennia. For six thousand years, the deer were one of the main sources of meat for the island. 7000 to 4500 years ago the deer seems to have become perhaps the most important economic mainstay of the island, although deer bones, which make up 70% of the animal remains, have been preserved in some places. They were found in significant numbers in pre-ceramic Neolithic sites across Cyprus and were important during the Cypriot Bronze Age. In the 15th century, deer were extinct on Cyprus.

In the dietary prescriptions of the Torah , Hebrew is used יַחְמוּר jaḥmûr denotes an animal species that may be eaten. This animal name actually means "what is red"; Gesenius offers "fallow deer" as a possible translation; the ancient translators of the Septuagint and the Vulgate suspected an African deer or antelope species. In New Hebrew the word is used for fallow deer.

Today's distribution

Today the deer live in Iran and Israel. They are bred in zoos and parks in Iran, Israel and Germany, where a breeding group has existed in the Opel Zoo since 1956 . During the Iranian Revolution in 1978, Israeli conservationists, with the help of Prince Gholam Reza Pahlavi (the Shah's brother) and the head of Iran's Hunting and Wildlife Agency, brought some of the captive fallow deer from Iran to Israel for security reasons. Since 1996 they have been gradually and successfully reintroduced into the wild from a breeding center in Mount Carmel and the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo in Israel, and from 2020 they are now in the western Galilee , in the Carmel regions, on Mount Sasa and in the Judean Hills in the Find near Jerusalem. By 1998, the Mesopotamian fallow deer population in Iran was well established and gradually increasing in number in a number of protected parks and zoos.

Habitat and way of life

Their preferred habitat includes a number of tamarisk , oak and pistachio forests. A natural enemy of the deer is the wolf . The Mesopotamian fallow deer is a herbivore, where grass, along with leaves and nuts, makes up 60% of its diet. In the Soreq Valley Nature Reserve in the West Bank, Mesopotamian fallow deer have been observed to spread eaten seeds . Over 30 different species germinate in the faeces of the animals. Goose feet , common herbs , nightshade and knotweed have proven to be particularly successful . But among the woody plants there was only the carob tree .

The size of the territories of Mesopotamian fallow deer varies according to gender and age. Older male deer are more territorial than younger males; however, older cows stay closer to where they were released (on average 900 m), while younger females migrate further away (on average 2.3 km from the release point). In Nahal Kziv Nature Reserve in Galilee reintroduced females use home ranges from 292 to 365 ha. They consist of dense Mediterranean forest and scrubland with around 52 to 53% forest cover. The terrain is largely moderately hilly. The centers are located at least 500 m from human traffic routes or settlements. Much of the areas overlap with the tail areas of other individuals. The greatest distance traveled by an animal is 16 km.

The peak of the rutting season in southwestern Iran is between August and September. The typical tube produced by the male animals in the case of the Mesopotamian fallow deer consists of a series of individual calls that last around one second and are therefore almost twice as long as the European fallow deer. Most of the births are in March. The deer shed their antlers between late February and early March.

Hazard and protection

Mesopotamian fallow deer in Hellabrunn Zoo

In 1875, when the species was rediscovered in southwestern Iran by the English Vice Consul Robertson, its range was restricted to the southwest and west of Iran. Some specimens ended up in Woburn Abbey in the park of the Duke of Bedford and in the London Zoo, where the world's first breeding succeeded in 1880. However, by the 1920s there was no longer any Mesopotamian fallow deer in Europe. In the 1940s, the taxon was considered extinct again, until 1955, on behalf of the IUCN, the American researcher Lee Merriam Talbot traveled to the Near East. Talbot reported an occurrence of deer in Chuzestan Province . Georg von Opel then financed an expedition by the German zoologists Theodor Haltorth and Werner Trense with the aim of finding and preserving the Mesopotamian fallow deer. In 1957 Trense was able to locate a group between the Dez and Karche rivers .

In 1957 and 1958, a wild pair of pure-blood young animals were caught and brought to the Opel Zoo , with which the German first breeding was successful in 1960. The female "Siba" gave birth to her first fawn (female) in captivity on July 17, 1960; however, the male partner "Sheikh" did not survive long enough to father a second fawn. Subsequently, a number of hybrids with the European fallow deer were born in the Opel Zoo, all seven of which were sent back to Dasht-e Naz in Iran in 1973.

From 1964 to 1967, the Iranian Game and Fish Department sent three expeditions to the Kareheh area in which three males and three females were caught. One male was sent to Germany and with the others the Iranian breeding program was initiated in the Dasht-e Naz Wildlife Refuge 25 m northeast of Sāri in the province of Māzandarān , which was successful. In the 1970s, the taxon was released to the Ashk Island (in Lake Urmia), the Arjan Conservation Area (in the Zagros Mountains), the Semeskandeh Game Reserve and the Kareheh Game Reserve. In 1989 the deer lived in seven Iranian nature parks, namely Dez, Karche, Bachtaran, Ashk Island, Kabuldagh Island, Dasht-e Naz and Semeskandeh.

The Semeskandeh population was descended from deer that had returned to Iran from Germany in the early 1970s. In 1989 there were 169 to 194 known specimens in Iran, with the number of wild animals in the original areas unknown. The largest population, 50 to 70 animals, was in Dasht-e Naz. The smallest population was on Kabuldagh Island, where six deer were transported in 1989. The population had grown to just under 250 by the 1990s. In 2003 there were 211 deer on Askh Island, 28 in Dasht-e Naz, and an unknown number in at least six other parks. By 2004, the total Iranian population had grown to around 340 individuals. In 2013, the known Iranian population totaled 371 individuals in 14 locations, of which 213 were on the island of Askh.

The reintroduction of fallow deer to Israel came from an initiative by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority to reintroduce lost mammals with Biblical names. The original breeding program started with three pure-blood Mesopotamian fallow deer from the Opel Zoo in 1976, with another four deer that were relocated from the Semeshkandeh Reserve in Iran in 1978 and brought to a breeding enclosure in the Carmel Hai Bar Nature Reserve. After a successful breeding program, hundreds of deer were bred from this original stock. It was later feared that the animals removed from Semeskandeh by Israel were hybrids. Later genetic studies showed that Iran never mixed the stocks.

There are currently several indigenous and resettled populations in numerous wildlife sanctuaries in Iran and Israel. As a result of previous conservation efforts, the current total population of Mesopotamian fallow deer is estimated to be over 1,100 individuals by 2015, slightly more than half of them in Israel: 300 specimens lived in the wild and 270 in captivity in Israel. Although genetic diversity as a result of inbreeding is low, it does not appear to have caused any problems. There is also a population of hybrids in Iran. In 2020, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority estimated that around 200 to 300 specimens live in the wild in the northern Galilee area, between 90 and 100 in the Judean Hills and a little less on Mount Carmel. The release of captive-bred animals has not yet been completed and more are planned for 2021. The species is clearly spreading, with sightings, droppings, and camera traps showing steady population growth and spreading eastward.

It is believed that the main reason for the rarity of the Mesopotamian fallow deer since the early Neolithic has been due to human hunting. Interspecific competition with domestic animals and habitat destruction may have contributed to the decline in their population, but around 10% of their previous range is still available as habitat. Hunters had killed an animal in the 1990s and domestic dogs killed Mesopotamian fallow deer in Israel. The main cause of current and past mortality is traffic accidents involving trains or cars. As Israel's indigenous wolf population has recovered from the Golan Heights and repopulated areas of the country, natural stalking by wolves has increased since the end of the 2010s, which the authorities tried to prevent.

literature

  • Theodor Haltorth: Contribution to the knowledge of the Mesopotamian fallow deer Cervus (Dama) mesopotamicus Brooke, 1875 and to the tribal and distribution history of the fallow deer in general. In: Mammalian Communications. 7, 1959, 192 pp.
  • Theodor Haltorth: Habitat, way of life and occurrence of the Mesopotamian fallow deer. In: Mammalian Communications. 9, 1961, pp. 15-39.
  • S. Mattioli: Family Cervidae (Deer). In: Don E. Wilson and Russell A. Mittermeier (Eds.): Handbook of the Mammals of the World. Volume 2: Hooved Mammals. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona 2011, ISBN 978-84-96553-77-4 , pp. 416-417

Web links

Commons : Mesopotamian Fallow Deer  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h IUCN Red List: Persian Fallow Deer
  2. ^ Thekla Pfeiffer: The fossil fallow deer from Neumark-Nord (Saxony-Anhalt) - D. dama geiselana n. Ssp. In: Ice Age and the Present. 48, 1998, pp. 72-68.
  3. ↑ a b Thekla Pfeiffer-Deml: The fossil fallow deer Dama geiselana (Cervidae, Mammalia, upgrade to species level) in the context of migration and local extinctions of fallow deer in the Late and Middle Pleistocene in Europe. In: Paleontological Journal. 92, 2018, pp. 681-713.
  4. ↑ Roman Croitor: Pliocene-Pleistocene deer of Western Paleartctic: Taxonomy, Systematics, Phylogeny. Institute of Zoology of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova, Chișinău 2018, pp. 1–140.
  5. ↑ a b S. Mattioli, pp. 416-417
  6. ↑ a b c Sandrine Hughes, Thomas J. Hayden, Christophe J. Douady, Christelle Tougard, Mietje Germonpréf, Anthony Stuart, Lyudmila Lbova, Ruth F. Carden, Catherine Hänni, Ludovic Say: Molecular phylogeny of the extinct giant deer, Megaloceros giganteus . In: Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 40, 2006, pp. 285-291
  7. ↑ AM Lister, CJ Edwards, DAW Nock, M. Bunce, IA van Pijlen, DG Bradley, MG Thomas, I. Barnes: The phylogenetic position of the 'giant deer' Megaloceros giganteus. In: Nature. 438, 2005, pp. 850-853.
  8. ↑ Bastien Mennecart, Daniel DeMiguel, Faysal Bibi, Gertrud E. Rössner, Grégoire Métais, James M. Neenan, Shiqi Wang, Georg Schulz, Bert Müller, Loïc Costeur: Bony labyrinth morphology clarifies the origin and evolution of deer. In: Scientific Reports. 7, 2017, p. 13176. doi: 10.1038 / s41598-017-12848-9
  9. ^ Victor Brooke: On a new species of deer from Mesopotamia. In: Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. , 1875, pp. 261-266 ( [1] ).
  10. ^ A b Christian Pitra, Joerns Fickel, Erik Meijaard, P. Colin Groves: Evolution and phylogeny of old world deer. In: Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 33, 2004, pp. 880-895, doi: 10.1016 / j.ympev.2004.07.013 .
  11. ^ Mammal Diversity Database
  12. ↑ Marco Massetti, Elena Pecchioli, Christiano Vernesi: Phylogeography of the last surviving populations of Rhodian and Anatolian fallow deer (Dama dama dama L., 1758). In: Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 93, 2008, pp. 835-844.
  13. ↑ a b c d e f g Jose Luis Fernández-García The endangered Dama dama mesopotamica Brooke, 1875: genetic variability, allelic loss and hybridization signals. In: Contributions to zoology Bijdragen tot de dierkunde. 81 (4), 2012, pp. 223-233
  14. ↑ Alexandre Hassanin, Frédéric Delsuc, Anne Ropiquet, Catrin Hammer, Bettine Jansen van Vuuren, Conrad Matthee, Manuel Ruiz-Garcia, François Catzeflis, Veronika Areskoug, Trung Thanh Nguyen, Arnaud Couloux: Pattern and timing of diversification of Cetartiodactalia , Lauriaasi (Mammia ), as revealed by a comprehensive analysis of mitochondrial genomes. In: Comptes Rendus Palevol. 335, 2012, pp. 32-50.
  15. ↑ Juan P. Zurano, Felipe M. Magalhães, Ana E. Asato, Gabriel Silva, Claudio J. Bidau, Daniel O. Mesquita, Gabriel C. Costa: Cetartiodactyla: Updating a time-calibrated molecular phylogeny. In: Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 133, 2019, pp. 256-262.
  16. ^ Ana B. Marín-Arroyo: New opportunities for previously excavated sites: paleoeconomy as a human evolutionary indicator at Tabun Cave (Israel). In: Jamie L. Clark, John D. Speth (Eds.): Zooarchaeology and Modern Human Origins, Human Hunting Behavior during the Later Pleistocene. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology Series. Springer, London, 2013, pp. 59-75.
  17. ↑ Ana B. Marín-Arroyoa, Francisco Gil Cano, Mark Lewis: Late Pleistocene foot infection in Dama mesopotamica from Tabun B (Mount Carmel, Israel). In: International Journal of Paleopathology. 8, 2015, pp. 48-50.
  18. ^ SJM Davies: Climatic change and the advent of domestication: the succession of ruminant Artiodactyla in the late Pleistocene-Holocene in the Israel region . In: Paleorient . 8, No. 2, 1982, pp. 5-15. Retrieved November 21, 2020.
  19. ↑ Liora Kolska Horwitz: Faunal Remains from the Early Iron Age site on Mount Ebal . In: Tel Aviv: Journal of the Institute of Archeology of Tel Aviv University . 13/14, September 1986, pp. 173-189. Retrieved November 21, 2020.
  20. ↑ a b Herodotos Kassapis, Nicos Clerides, Eleftherios Hadjisterkotis: A new fallow deer fossil site in Cyprus: preliminary results . In: IUGB and the IXth International Symposium Perdix., Pp. 29-49.
  21. ↑ a b P. W. Croft: Game use in early prehistoric Cyprus . In: Journal for Hunting Science . 48, 2002, pp. 172-179. doi : 10.1007 / BF02192406 .
  22. ↑ Deuteronomy 14.5, standard translation 2016 ( [2] )
  23. ↑ Gesenius. 18th edition 2013 , p. 460.
  24. ↑ Israel's rescued deer | MNN - Mother Nature Network . Archived from the original on April 13, 2019. Retrieved November 21, 2020.
  25. ↑ a b c d Zafrir Rinat: Comeback Kids: Persian Fallow Deer Reestablish Themselves in Israel's North . In: Haaretz , June 22, 2020. Retrieved November 21, 2020. 
  26. ↑ a b A. Perelberg, D. Saltz, S. Bar-David, A. Dolev, Y. Yom-Tov: Seasonal and Circadian Changes in the home ranges of reintroduced Persian Fallow Deer. In: Journal of Wildlife Management. 67 (3), 2003, pp. 485-492 [3] .
  27. ↑ Iran Wildlife . Retrieved November 21, 2020.
  28. ↑ Royi Sidon, Hagar Leschner, Uzi motro, David Saltz: Endozoochory by the Persian fallow deer (Dama mesopotamica) reintroduced in Israel: species richness and germination success. In: Israel Journal of Ecology & Evolution. 63 (1), 2016, pp. 28–34.
  29. ↑ Shirli Bar-David, David Saltz, Tamar Dayan: Predicting the spatial dynamics of a reintroduced population: The Persian fallow deer. In: Ecological Applications. 15 (5), 2005, pp. 1833-1846.
  30. ↑ JB Stachowicz, E. Vannoni, BJ Pitcher, EF Briefer, E. Geffen, AG McElligott: Acoustic divergence in the rut vocalizations of Persian and European fallow deer. In: Journal of Zoology. 292 (1), 2014, pp. 1-9.
  31. ↑ Zoo animal list - Former holdings
  32. ^ A b Günter Heidemann, Henning Wiesner: Mesopotamian fallow deer ( Cervus dama mesopotamicus ) in Iran (in International Studbook for the Mesopotamian fallow deer) January 1, 1992, pp. 58-64 (accessed on November 21, 2020).
  33. ↑ a b c Very successful breeders. In: Zoo Chat. August 24, 2006, accessed November 21, 2020 .
  34. ^ NG Chapman: The possible role of enclosures in the conservation of threatened deer. Enclosures: A Dead End? Symposium proceedings, Sopron, 2010, pp. 28–37.
  35. ↑ D. Saltz: Minimizing extinction probability due to demographic stochasticity in a reintroduced herd of Persian Fallow Deer Dama dama mesopotamica. In: Biological Conservation. 75 (1), 1996, pp. 27-33.
  36. ^ AD Dolev, D. Saltz, S. Bar-David, Y. Yom-Tov: Impact of Repeated Releases on Space-use Patterns of Persian Fallow Deer. In: Journal of Wildlife Management. 66 (3), 2002, pp. 737-746.
  37. ↑ R. Sidon, D. Saltz, LS Shore, U. motro: Behavioral changes, stress, and Survival Following Reintroduction of Persian Fallow Deer from Two Breeding Facilities . In: The Journal of Conservation Biology. 26 (1), 2012, pp. 107-115.
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