Pere David's deer
| Père David's deer Temporal range: 3–0 Ma Late Pliocene to Holocene |
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| Père David's deer (Elaphurus davidianus) at Woburn Deer Park | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Synapsida |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Family: | Cervidae |
| Subfamily: | Cervinae |
| Genus: |
Elaphurus Milne-Edwards, 1872 |
| Species: | E. davidianus |
| Binomial name | |
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Elaphurus davidianus Milne-Edwards, 1866 |
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| Père David's deer | |||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese | 麋鹿 | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Literal meaning | Elk-deer | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
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| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Mílù |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| Jyutping | Mei4luk6 |
| Southern Min | |
| Hokkien POJ | Mi-lok |
| Middle Chinese | |
| Middle Chinese |
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Père David's deer (Elaphurus davidianus), also known as the milu (Chinese: ; pinyin: mílù) or elaphure, is a species of deer that are mostly found in captivity. This animal prefers marshland, and is native to the subtropics of China. It grazes mainly on grass and aquatic plants. It is the only extant member of the genus Elaphurus. Based on genetic comparisons, Père David's deer is closely related to the deer of the genus Cervus, leading many experts to suggest merging Elaphurus into Cervus, or demoting Elaphurus to a subgenus of Cervus.
The Père David's deer is endemic to the Chinese region. According to fossil records, the species first appeared during the Pleistocene period, when it could be found anywhere in the Manchuria. This demography changed during the Holocene period; during this time, the species could only be found in the swamp lands and wetlands of southern China. Due to hunting and land reclamation, the demography of the Père David's deer became even smaller. By 1939, the last of the wild species were shot and killed.
This species of deer was first made known to Western science in 1866 by Armand David (Père David), a French missionary working in China. He obtained the carcasses of an adult male, an adult female and a young male, and sent them to Paris, where the species was named Père David's Deer by Alphonse Milne-Edwards, a French biologist.
The species is sometimes known by its informal name sibuxiang (Chinese: 四不像; pinyin: sì bú xiàng; Japanese: shifuzō), literally meaning "four not alike", which could mean "the four unlikes" or "like none of the four"; it is variously said that the four are cow, deer, donkey, horse (or) camel, and that the expression means in detail:
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