Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"

I teased you with only the image a couple of weeks ago � now here's the article proper! This is a Reindeer, Rangifer tarandus, in North America called Caribou, appropriate for the season (but not here in South Africa)! The name 'reindeer' goes back to the Norse word 'rein', while 'Caribou' goes back to 'qalipu' in the Mi'kmaq language which means 'snow shoveler'. 'Rangifer' might be derived from Saami 'raingo' and 'tarandus' goes back to Ancient Greek 'tarandos'. Over its huge range in North America and Europe, the species has a great variety of names in local languages. As I said in earlier articles, the closest relatives of the reindeer are the Moose and the Roe Deer. No other species of the genus, extant or extinct, is known.

Ecologically Diverse

Although reindeer are associated with Santa Claus, and may also be thought of as animals semi-domesticated by the S�mi of Scandinavia, as well as some other North Eurasian peoples, there are still substantial numbers of them living wild and free. Although the two names, reindeer in Europe and Caribou in America, may make you think these two kinds are different, they actually belong to just one species. There are actually fourteen subspecies currently recognized, and they're fairly evenly divided between Eurasia and North America. In historic times, caribou existed wild in some of the northeastern states of the USA, but today only a tiny remnant remains; mainly it is found in Alaska and Canada. They also used to occur in China, Mongolia, Eastern Europe, Germany, Ireland and Scotland, whereas today reindeer are restricted to Greenland, Scandinavia and Russia. Feral populations exist in South Georgia, Kerguelen and some other sub-Antarctic islands.

The reindeer is a beast of the Ice Ages, its earliest known fossils dating from about 680 000 years ago. It is superbly cold-adapted, and as the glaciers spread southward and northward, it ranged just to the south of them, in land varying from tundra to coniferous forest and woodland. In the cold periods, they occurred as far south as Tennessee, Alabama, Spain and Italy. Other Ice Age megafauna (huge mammals) that used to live with them in the same habitat were the woolly mammoths and woolly rhinos; these are now gone, but the reindeer remain. And they are indeed magnificent! They range in weight from 80-120 kg/180-265 lbs in the cows, and 160-180 kg/350-400 lbs in the bulls. Exceptionally bulls can reach 320 kg/700 lbs. The Woodland Caribou of Southern Canada is the biggest subspecies, while the Reindeer of the Svalbard Islands is the smallest. They still occur in a variety of habitats, both wooded and barren, including mountains.

In coloration, reindeer and caribou vary much, with the most northern ones typically having much lighter-coloured fur. The fur in any case is very dense and consists of two types of hairs: a dense under-wool, amidst which grow longer, hollow hairs as an overcoat. These hollow hairs provide excellent insulation against the cold, and even buoy the reindeer up when they swim across rivers or lakes.

Another adaptation reindeer use against the cold is specialized blood vessels in their legs and snouts. The legs are purposely kept cool so that most heat can be retained in the body and vital organs. The rather big and somewhat moose-like snout also has extensive nasal passages lined with blood vessels to warm inhaled air and prevent too much moisture to be lost.

Their big snouts also furnish them with an excellent sense of smell. This allows them to find food buried deep under the snow. Their eyesight is also unusual in that they can see a little bit into the ultraviolet range, giving them subtle discrimination in vision that allows them to pick out features such as urine markings. They have a reflective layer at the rear of their eyes called a tapetum lucidum (similar to that found in cats) which changes colour from gold in summer to blue in winter. This helps them see better in the dim light, even continuous dark of the Arctic winter night in the very far north. The same regions experience continuous light for long periods in the summer. In these regions the reindeer no longer sleep in 24-hour cycles, but instead sleep whenever they need to digest their food, being awake the rest of the time.

For walking on snow or soft, boggy ground, reindeer have big, broad hooves. They also have prominent 'dew claw' hooves behind the main ones. During winter, fur grows between the hooves to protect the feet against heat loss. They often use their hooves to dig in the snow after edible plants. The broad hooves also aid them in reaching swimming speeds of up to 10 km/h/6 mph. Weirdly, there are tendons from their knees to their feet that, with each step of theirs, slip over a bony bump to make a loud, clicking sound. In humans, clicking joints usually indicate something is going wrong, but in reindeer, the clicks are normal and part of the sound repertoire herds use to keep in touch with each other. They also use vocal sounds and scent markings as signals.

Much of the far north is still wild country, and reindeer can range free over great distances. They are the most migratory of all large mammals, with some populations, those around Ungava and Labrador, making annual migrations of over 5 000 km/3 000 miles. They may cover 55 km/34 miles in a day. They tend to move from tundra in summer into forests in winter.

Elaborate Antlers

Reindeer and caribou have some of the largest and most elaborate antlers in the deer family, among the living deer only rivalled by the huge antlers of some bull moose. In fact, reindeer antlers are even bigger, if considered in relation to their body size. As in other deer, there can be great variation in antler configuration between not only the different subspecies, but even between different individuals of the same subspecies. They often are composed of several 'beams' each with an expanded or 'palmate' (shaped like a human hand) tip, as you can see in my drawing. The largest antlers are found in the southern, woodland-dwelling caribou. They can measure 1.35 m/53" along the beam. Female reindeer and caribou also normally grow antlers, which is very unusual for deer. The female antlers are somewhat smaller and less elaborate then those of the bulls. Reindeer can use their antlers for defending themselves against predators such as wolves or bears, or for sparring amongst themselves for dominance.

Reindeer Lichen

As may be expected from their diverse habitat tolerance, reindeer enjoy a variety of different foods. In well-vegetated lands, they will graze and eat sedges, the leaves of low trees and bushes, and mushrooms. In tundra country, especially during the winter, they eat mainly lichen, with the main species they depend upon being called Reindeer Lichen. Lichens are extremely hardy 'plants' that are actually not true plants, or even single organisms, but symbiotic partnerships between fungi (which are not plants) and algae (mostly single-celled photosynthesizing organisms). The fungus protects and provides water and minerals to the algae cells in its body, which in turn photosynthesize to produce nutritious carbohydrates which it in turn shares with the fungus. Lichens can survive in extreme climates such as the harshest deserts and the freezing Arctic and Antarctic. Most large mammals can't digest them, but reindeer are an exception because they in turn have symbioses of their own, with special bacteria and protozoa (single-celled organisms) that live in their guts and are able to break lichens down. Reindeer also have an enzyme of their own, lichenase, that can digest certain components of lichens into glucose.

Another strange feeding behaviour of reindeer is that they eat bones! The principal kind of bone they eat is that of their own antlers, after they're shed. Sometimes they don't even wait for the antlers to fall, but chew on each other's antlers while they're still attached! This allows them to re-absorb the precious minerals in these antlers, which in turn helps them to re-grow the next season's set of antlers.

Other unusual food eaten by reindeer include lemmings (small rodents) and birds' eggs. Lemmings are abundant in the far north, even in winter when they often dig around beneath the snow; while in summer, a great many kinds of waders and other birds nest on the tundra. This makes them available to consumption by opportunistic reindeer. Some reindeer will even eat fish.

Reindeer Reproduction

Mating season for reindeer is in autumn. Bulls compete ferociously with each other, often losing a lot of bodyweight. But to the victors go the spoils. A single dominant bull can take for himself and impregnate a 'harem' of 15-20 cows. The cow carries her single calf for about seven and a half months, so that the calves arrive in the late spring or early summer. She will search out a secluded, safe place to give birth. The calf weighs about 6 kg/3 lbs at birth. It is born open-eyed and can stand up and follow its mom within an hour, and run faster than the fastest human sprinter within a day. It survives on mother's milk for a month, at which point it begins to graze for itself. But it still nurses from its mom intermittently until the next autumn arrives.

Wild reindeer cows can live to the age of 17 years, bulls rarely over 10 years. Adults can fall prey to bears and wolves, while calves are also vulnerable to wolverines and even golden eagles. At least one reindeer swimming over a stretch of sea fell prey to a Greenland shark, in the belly of which it was found whole. They suffer a lot from much smaller 'predators' such as blood-sucking mosquitoes and flies, which may seriously deplete them, especially making things tough for them during the times they migrate, with some animals even weakened to the point where they can't complete their journeys. They also are susceptible to internal parasites.

Humans have also negatively affected reindeer and caribou, through hunting and habitat destruction and change. Global warming may further decrease available reindeer habitat in the future. Some subspecies and populations are at risk of extinction, two subspecies already having gone extinct.

Reindeer have profound cultural and economic importance to several different Arctic peoples. Extensive domesticated and semi-wild populations exist, including in places further to the south than the wild herds. They provide meat, hides, antlers, milk, and are used to pull sleds or even to ride (in the case of the larger Russian animals). Reindeer herders migrate with their herds and tend them 'on the hoof'. Domesticated reindeer are slightly shorter-legged than wild ones.

As symbols, reindeer occur on coats of arms, logos and coins. There is also a constellation of stars, named Rangifer.

Willem

08.01.24 Front Page

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