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New deer species discovered in Russia
01 november 2019
Primorsky Province Wildlife Management Department, the Land of the Leopard National Park and WWF Russia announce that a water deer, a new mammal, appeared in the fauna of Primorye.
The first information about the “roe deer with canine teeth”, or “swamp musk deer” came from a citizen of the village of Barabash, the southwestern Primorye, in August 2016. After that, rangers, frontier guards, hunters, and fishermen encountered this “strange hybrid” quite regularly.
In April 2019, the Land of the Leopard Nation Park’s
staff captured the water deer (Hydropotes inermis) with a camera trap in the southern part
of the Park. According to the information presented on the Park’s site,
this species in the fauna of Russia and the former Soviet Union’s borders has
been registered for the first time. From now on the list of mammals will
include 327 species instead of 326 and the water deer will become the eighth in
the Cervidae family.
Revelation of a not-seen-before across Russia animal
has become the first fact of such a kind in the 21st century.
Finally, in July 2019, inspectors of the Primorsky Province Wildlife Management Department and one of WWF specialists found the first evidence – a stuffed water deer. Its body was found in the Khasansky District most likely in winter 2018. Right away the stuffed animal is being studied by the scientists and staff of the National Park and WWF. They conduct DNA test, perform morphometric analysis, and examine the deer’s hair coat.
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