Rangifer (genus)
| Reindeer Temporal range: to present |
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| Reindeer in Norway | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Family: | Cervidae |
| Subfamily: | Capreolinae |
| Tribe: | Rangiferini |
| Genus: |
Rangifer C.H. Smith, 1827 |
| Species: | R. tarandus |
| Binomial name | |
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Rangifer tarandus (Linnaeus, 1758) |
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| Reindeer habitat divided into North American and Eurasian parts | |
| Synonyms | |
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Cervus tarandus (Linnaeus, 1758) |
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Cervus tarandus (Linnaeus, 1758)
The reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), also known as caribou in North America, is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to arctic, subarctic, tundra, boreal, and mountainous regions of northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. This includes both sedentary and migratory populations. Rangifer herd size varies greatly in different geographic regions. The Taimyr herd of migrating tundra reindeer (R.t. sibiricus) in Russia is the largest wild reindeer herd in the world, with numbers varying between 400,000 and 1,000,000. What was the second largest herd is the migratory woodland caribou (R.t. caribou) George River herd in Canada, with former variations between 28,000 and 385,000. As of January 2018, there are fewer than 9,000 animals estimated to be left in the George River herd as reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Rangifer vary in colour and size from the smallest, the Peary caribou, to the largest, the boreal woodland caribou. The North American range of caribou extends from Alaska, through the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, into the boreal forest and south through the Canadian Rockies and the Columbia and Selkirk Mountains. Barren-ground, Porcupine caribou and Peary caribou live in the tundra, while the shy woodland caribou prefers the boreal forest. Two major subspecies in North America, the Porcupine caribou and the barren-ground caribou, form large herds and undertake lengthy seasonal migrations from birthing grounds, to summer and winter feeding grounds in the tundra and taiga. The migrations of Porcupine caribou herds are among the longest of any terrestrial mammal. Barren-ground caribou are also found in Kitaa in Greenland, but the larger herds are in Alaska, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.
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Wikipedia