Deer is a good and faithful helper of Santa Claus. But there is one a feature peculiar only to the genus Reindeer, which allowed scientists to question Santa’s deer gender.
Deer of this species live in Alaska, Canada, northern Russia and Scandinavia.
These are very calm and quiet animals. Santa may not be afraid that they wake the children – the presence of deer can only give them out bell.
The sounds of reindeer make only in certain cases.
In the summer, the female communicates with the cubs in the first 2 months from the moment they birth, and males cry in the fall during the mating season.
For this, the males have a special bag on their neck, allowing make throaty hoarse sounds or callsigns to them females.
Caribou is another name for these deer.
Only reindeer are called, as a rule, tamed animals that pull sleds or graze in herds.
They are below their wild relatives and live in Siberia and in Scandinavia.
The caribou’s dimensions are small, the height at the withers is up to 1 meter, and the weight is about 170 kg in males and 90 kg in females.
Santa’s deer are really fast, capable of speeds up to 80 km / h
These are very hardy animals, are champions among terrestrial mammals by travel distance. Caribou capable to go up to 5 thousand kilometers per year. They can compete make up only a humpback whale that swims around 8.
Their bodies are covered with tangled thick hair that helps to escape from severe frosts and winds in the tundra.
In addition, their circulatory system is designed so that more effectively transfer heat from the body to the limbs.
Reindeer is the only species of deer that have males in early December, when the mating season ends, they lose their horns. And the females wear them until spring to beat off their territory and food from others.
In addition, by the end of December, males lose subcutaneous fat, it only 5% remains, and females, on the contrary, accumulate up to 50%, which allows you to safely transfer the strong, up to 43 degrees, frosts.
Although, males of reindeer can still keep their horns on head all winter, but subject to: either these are very young deer, whose horns grew only the first year, or it’s adults, but castrated deer. This is a fairly common practice, so how these deer are easier to train in harness.
Probably due to speed, resistance to frost and beautiful Santa’s horns and chose reindeer for himself. And in his harness still there are like males (Rudolph, Dancer, Desher, Prenser, Cupid and etc.) and the female Vinser. Happy new year and Christmas!
