What are the horns of a sika deer like?

Abstract: Sika deer is a kind of medium-sized deer, with a body length of 140 to 170 cm, shoulder height of 85 to 100 cm, adult weight of 100 to 150 kg, smaller female, horned male deer, generally quadruple, and group activity most of the time. The size of the population varies with seasons, natural enemies and human factors, usually 3 to 5, and more than 20 at a time. Let's take a look at what the horns of sika deer look like.

Sika deer is a kind of medium-sized deer, with a body length of 140-170 cm, shoulder height of 85-100 cm, adult weight of 100-150 kg, smaller female, horned male deer, generally quadruple, and group activity most of the time. The size of the group varies with seasons, natural enemies and human factors, usually 3 to 5, and sometimes up to more than 20. Let's take a look at what sika deer's horns look like.

What are the horns of a sika deer like?

The horns of a sika deer are like staggered branches. The sika deer female has no horns, the male has a pair of majestic solid horns on the head, and there are four branches on the horns. The eyebrow fork and the trunk form an obtuse angle, extending forward near the base, with a larger distance between the secondary bifurcation and the brow bifurcation, which is often mistaken for no secondary bifurcation. At the end of the sika deer, the trunk is again divided into two branchlets, the trunk generally bends to both sides, showing a slight semi-arc, the eyebrow fork is held forward and upward, and the tip of the horn bends slightly inward, which is very sharp.

The habitat of sika deer

Sika deer live on the edge of forests and mountain grasslands, not in dense forests or thickets, which helps to run fast. There are obvious differences in habitats between daytime and nighttime. During the day, they choose to live on sunny hillsides, where the thatch is relatively dense and basically similar to their body color, and at night they inhabit the middle or upper part of the hillside with uncertain slope directions. but it is still mostly sunny slopes, and the perched place thatch is relatively low and sparse, so that enemies can be found earlier in order to escape quickly.

What kind of food does sika deer eat?

Sika deer are active in the morning and dusk, and the living area changes with the seasons. In spring, they are mostly on the semi-shady slope, feeding on the tender branches and leaves of trees and shrubs such as oak, chestnut, Huzhizi, wild Hawthorn, elm, and newly germinated herbs. Moving to the forest edge of the shady slope in summer and autumn, they mainly feed on vines and herbs, such as kudzu, Polygonum multiflorum, Codonopsis pilosula and strawberries, while in winter they like to eat ripe fruits, seeds and various moss lichens on the warm sunny slopes. occasionally go to the foot of the mountain to eat rape, wheat and other crops, but also often to the saline-alkali soil to lick salt and alkali.

Breeding habits of Sika Deer

During the breeding period of sika deer, the diet of male animals is significantly reduced, and their temperament becomes violent and ferocious. Fights often occur in order to compete for mates, and the two horns on their heads become weapons to attack each other. This kind of "wrestling" is a very common phenomenon among deer. A strong male can usually have more than 10 females. In a breeding season, the female can estrus multiple times. The estrous cycle is 5 days. Once conceived, the female will no longer be in estrus. The gestation period is about 230 days, and the offspring are born in May to June of the following year. Generally, only one litter is born per fetus, and a few are 2 litters. The cub gives birth to a yellowish-brown body with white spots that can stand up in a few hours and run with the female the next day. When the female was looking for food, she first looked around outside the forest and was sure that there was no danger before she brought her cub out. She would scream when she found the danger and fled into the dense forest with her cub. The lactation period is 2 to 3 months, and the cub can grow to about 10 kilograms after 4 months. The sexual maturity is 1.5 ~ 3 years old, and the life span is about 20 years.

Population status of Sika Deer

Sika deer have been overhunted in history, and the number in the wild is very small. Wild sika deer are highly endangered in China, with a total population of less than 1000. North China subspecies and Shanxi subspecies have become extinct. There are about 200 South China subspecies on the border between Anhui, Zhejiang and Jiangxi, less than 100 in Guangxi, about 500 Sichuan subspecies in northern Sichuan and southern Gansu, and northeast subspecies may have become extinct. Taiwan subspecies was originally extinct, but the domesticated population was later wild and released, and there are now about 200. In South Korea and Vietnam, North Korea may be extinct, with about 9000 in eastern Russia and about 300000 in Japan. Japanese sika deer were once on the verge of extinction, but good conservation and the extinction of Japanese wolves led to the recovery of the population. Now, due to the lack of the control of natural enemies, there are too many sika deer, resulting in the destruction of forests and farmland.