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Showing posts with label SRI LANKAN SAMBAR DEER (Rusa unicolor ssp. Unicolor). Show all posts
Showing posts with label SRI LANKAN SAMBAR DEER (Rusa unicolor ssp. Unicolor). Show all posts

Thursday, 16 May 2024

18-4-2024 PANNA TIGER LODGE, INDIA - SRI LANKAN SAMBAR DEER (Rusa unicolor ssp. Unicolor)

The sambar (Rusa unicolor) is a large deer native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. The name "sambar" is also sometimes used to refer to the Philippine deer called the "Philippine sambar", and the Javan rusa called the "Sunda sambar".

Sambar deer are light brown or dark with a grayish or yellowish tinge. The underparts are paler. Old sambars turn very dark brown, almost the color black. Their coat of dark short hair is coarse, and their undersides have creamy white to light brown hair. The color of the coat is usually consistent around the body, but it can vary from almost dark gray to yellowish-brown.

Males have unique stout, rugged antlers with three points, or tines. Their tail is quite long for deer, generally black on top and dirty white or whitish underneath. Sambars have long, strong legs, the upper color being dark brown, with the inner parts of the legs a paler or dirty white. Their brownish-gray ears are long. Adult males and pregnant or lactating females possess an unusual hairless, blood-red spot located about halfway down the underside of their throats. This sometimes oozes a white liquid and is apparently glandular in nature.


Sambar deer are native in India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Sri Lanka, Burma, the Philippines, southern China, Taiwan, Borneo, Malaysia, Sumatra, and Java. They inhabit both the gentle slopes and the steeper parts of forested hillsides. Sambar prefer to live in tropical dry forests, open scrub, tropical seasonal forests, subtropical mixed forests with stands of conifers and montane grasslands, broadleaved deciduous and broadleaved evergreen trees, to tropical rainforests, and seldom move far from water sources. These deer can also be found near cultivated areas like gardens and plantations, where they can find food.

Monday, 22 April 2024

22-4-2024 BANDHAVGARH, INDIA - SRI LANKAN SAMBAR DEER (Rusa unicolor ssp. unicolor)


The Sri Lankan sambar or Indian sambar (Rusa unicolor unicolor), also known as ගෝනා (gōṇā) in Sinhala, is a subspecies of the sambar that lives in India and Sri Lanka. British explorers and planters referred to it, erroneously, as an elk, leading to place names such as Elk Plain.

This subspecies is the largest sambar subspecies and representative of the Rusa genus, with the largest antlers both in size and in body proportions. Large males weight up to 270–280 kg.

Sambar live in both lowland dry forests and mountain forests. Large herds of sambar roam the Horton Plains National Park, where it is the most common large mammal.