Northern Pudu
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Northern_Pudu"
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Northern Pudu
Conservation status
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Cervidae
Genus: Pudu
Species: P. mephistophiles
Binomial name
Pudu mephistophiles
(de Winton, 1896)

The Northern Pudu (Pudu mephistophiles) is a species of even-toed ungulate in the Cervidae family.

Contents

Range

This deer is found in the northern Andes Mountains - Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru1.

Appearance

Small, stocky and quiet, it has a small rounded body, delicate legs, the antlers are short simple spikes. The Northern Pudu's coat is dark brown in colour, thick and dense, offering good protection from the harsh habitat in which it lives. The ears are small and rounded, and the tail is short.

Measurements

Head & Body Length - 60 to 80 cm
Shoulder Height - up to 35 cm
Tail length - 2 to 3 cm
Weight - 8 to 10 kilograms

Slightly larger than the Southern Pudu, the world's smallest species of deer.

Behaviour

The Northern Pudu feeds in the wet forest undergrowth, eating ferns and leaves from young trees. Because of it's incredibly moist diet, the northern pudu, has to drink only very occasionally. Dung is dropped in large communal piles by groups of pudus, possibly to mark territory.

Conservation Status

The northern pudu is now in danger of extinction, this is mainly because of habitat destruction, predation (mainly by dogs) and competition from introduced European deer species.

Source

  1. ^ Grubb, Peter (16 November 2005). in Wilson, D. E., and Reeder, D. M. (eds): Mammal Species of the World, 3rd edition, Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-801-88221-4. 
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