The reindeer or caribou (Rangifer tarandus) is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, subarctic, tundra, boreal, and mountainous regions of Northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. It is the only representative of the genus Rangifer. More recent studies suggest the splitting of reindeer and caribou (North American terminology). "All caribou and reindeer throughout the world are considered to be the same species, but there are 7 subspecies."
Reindeer occur in both migratory and sedentary populations, and their herd sizes vary greatly in different regions. The tundra subspecies are adapted for extreme cold, and some are adapted for long-distance migration.
Reindeer vary greatly in size and color from the smallest, the Svalbard reindeer (R. (t.) platyrhynchus), to the largest, Osborn's caribou (R. t. osborni). Although reindeer are quite numerous, some species and subspecies are in decline and considered vulnerable. They are unique among deer (Cervidae) in that females may have antlers, although the prevalence of antlered females varies by subspecies.
Reindeer are the only successfully semi-domesticated deer on a large scale in the world. Both wild and domestic reindeer have been an important source of food, clothing, and shelter for Arctic people from prehistorical times. They are still herded and hunted today. In some traditional Christmas legends, Santa Claus's reindeer pull a sleigh through the night sky to help Santa Claus deliver gifts to good children on Christmas Eve.
Description Names follow international conventionMattioli, S. (2011). "Caribou (Rangifer tarandus)", pp. 431–432 in: Handbook of the Mammals of the World Vol. 2: Hoofed Mammals. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. before the recent revision (see below). Reindeer / caribou (Rangifer) vary in size from the smallest, the Svalbard reindeer (R. (t.) platyrhynchus), to the largest, Osborn's caribou (R. t. osborni). They also vary in coat color and antler architecture.
The North American range of caribou extends from Alaska through the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut throughout the tundra, taiga (boreal forest) and south through the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Of the eight subspecies classified by Harding (2022) into the Arctic caribou (R. arcticus), the migratory mainland barren-ground caribou of Arctic Alaska and Northern Canada (R. t. arcticus), summer in tundra and winter in taiga, a transitional forest zone between boreal forest and tundra; the nomadic Peary caribou (R. t. pearyi) lives in the polar desert of the high Arctic Archipelago and Grant's caribou (R. t. granti also called the Porcupine caribou) lives in the western end of the Alaska Peninsula and the adjacent islands; the other four subspecies, Osborn's caribou (R. t. osborni), Stone's caribou (R. t. stonei), the Rocky Mountain caribou (R. t. fortidens) and the Selkirk Mountains caribou (R. t. montanus) are all montane. The extinct insular Queen Charlotte Islands caribou (R. t. dawsoni), lived on Graham Island in Haida Gwaii (formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands).
The boreal woodland caribou (R. t. caribou), lives in the boreal forest of northeastern Canada: the Labrador or Ungava caribou of northern Quebec and northern Labrador (R. t. caboti), and the Newfoundland caribou of Newfoundland (R. t. terranovae) have been found to be genetically in the woodland caribou lineage.
In Eurasia, both wild and domestic reindeer are distributed across the tundra and into the taiga. Eurasian mountain reindeer (R. t. tarandus) are close to North American caribou genetically and visually, but with sufficient differences to warrant division into two species. The unique, insular Svalbard reindeer inhabits the Svalbard Archipelago. The Finnish forest reindeer (R. t. fennicus) is spottily distributed in the coniferous forest zones from Finland to east of Lake Baikal: the Siberian forest reindeer (R. t. valentinae, formerly called the Busk Mountains reindeer (R. t. buskensis) by American taxonomists) occupies the Altai and Ural Mountains.
Male ("bull") and female ("cow") reindeer can grow antlers annually, although the proportion of females that grow antlers varies greatly between populations. Antlers are typically larger on males. Antler architecture varies by species and subspecies and, together with pelage differences, can often be used to distinguish between species and subspecies (see illustrations in Geist, 1991 and Geist, 1998).
Status About 20,000 mountain reindeer (R. t. tarandus) still live in the mountains of Norway, notably in Hardangervidda. In Sweden there are approximately 250,000 reindeer in herds managed by Sámi villages. Russia manages 19 herds of Siberian tundra reindeer (R. t. sibiricus) that total about 940,000.Mizin, I.A. (2018) The current state of the wild reindeer in Russia - general overview of the situation. Barents office of WWF Russia Russian Arctic National Park for World Wildlife Fund, Arkhangelsk, Russia, 8 pp. The Taimyr herd of Siberian tundra reindeer is the largest wild reindeer herd in the world, varying between 400,000 and 1,000,000; it is a metapopulation consisting of several subpopulations—some of which are phenotypically different—with different migration routes and calving areas. The Kamchatkan reindeer (R. t. phylarchus), a forest subspecies, formerly included reindeer west of the Sea of Okhotsk which, however, are indistinguishable genetically from the Jano-Indigirka, East Siberian taiga and Chukotka populations of R. t. sibiricus. Siberian tundra reindeer herds have been in decline but are stable or increasing since 2000.
Insular (island) reindeer, classified as the Novaya Zemlya reindeer (R. t. pearsoni) occupy several island groups: the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago (about 5,000 animals at last count, but most of these are either domestic reindeer or domestic-wild hybrids), the New Siberia Archipelago (about 10,000 to 15,000), and Wrangel Island (200 to 300 feral domestic reindeer).
The migratory George River herd of Labrador caribou (R. t. caboti) in Canada was once the second largest herd of reindeer in the world, with numbers varying between 800,000 and 900,000 in the 1990s. 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. The New York Times reported in April 2018 of the disappearance of the only herd of southern mountain woodland caribou in the contiguous United States, with an expert calling it "functionally extinct" after the herd's size dwindled to a mere three animals. After the last individual, a female, was translocated to a wildlife rehabilitation center in Canada, caribou were considered extirpated from the contiguous United States. The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) classified both the Southern Mountain population DU9 (R. t. montanus) and the Central Mountain population DU8 (R. t. fortidens) as Endangered and the Northern Mountain population DU7 (R. t. osborni) as Threatened.
Some species and subspecies are rare and three subspecies have already become extinct: the Queen Charlotte Islands caribou (R. t. dawsoni) from western Canada, the Sakhalin reindeer (R. t. setoni) from Sakhalin and the East Greenland caribou from eastern Greenland, although some authorities believe that the latter, R. t. eogroenlandicus Degerbøl, 1957, is a junior synonym of the Peary caribou. Historically, the range of the sedentary boreal woodland caribou covered more than half of Canada and into the northern states of the contiguous United States from Maine to Washington. Boreal woodland caribou have disappeared from most of their original southern range and were designated as Threatened in 2002 by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). Environment and Climate Change Canada reported in 2011 that there were approximately 34,000 boreal woodland caribou in 51 ranges remaining in Canada (Environment Canada, 2011b), although those numbers included montane populations classified by Harding (2022) into subspecies of the Arctic caribou. Siberian tundra reindeer herds are also in decline, and Rangifer as a whole is considered to be Vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Naming Charles Hamilton Smith is credited with the name Rangifer for the reindeer genus, which Albertus Magnus used in his , fol. Liber 22, Cap. 268: "Dicitur Rangyfer quasi ramifer". This word may go back to the Sámi word . Carl Linnaeus chose the word tarandus as the specific epithet, making reference to Ulisse Aldrovandi's fol. 859–863, Cap. 30: De Tarando (1621). However, Aldrovandi and Conrad GessnerGesner, K. (1617) . Tiguri 1551. p. 156: De Tarando. 9. 950: De Rangifero. thought that rangifer and tarandus were two separate animals.Aldrovandi, U. (1621) . Bononiæ. Cap. 30: De Tarando– Cap. 31: De Rangifero. In any case, the tarandos name goes back to Aristotle and Theophrastus.
The use of the terms reindeer and caribou for essentially the same animal can cause confusion, but the International Union for Conservation of Nature clearly delineates the issue: "Reindeer is the European name for the species of Rangifer, while in North America, Rangifer species are known as Caribou." According to the US Food and Drug Administration, in North American English the animal is known as caribou if wild and reindeer if domesticated. The word reindeer is an anglicized version of the Old Norse words ("reindeer") and ("animal") and has nothing to do with reins. The word caribou comes through French, from the Mi'kmaq , meaning "snow shoveler", and refers to its habit of pawing through the snow for food.Flexner, Stuart Berg and Leonore Crary Hauck; eds. (1987). The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, 2nd ed. (unabridged). New York: Random House, pp. 315–16
Because of its importance to many cultures, Rangifer and some of its species and subspecies have names in many languages. Inuvialuit of the western Canadian Arctic and Inuit of the eastern Canadian Arctic, who speak different dialects of the Inuit languages, both call the barren-ground caribou .Spalding, Alex, Inuktitut – A Multi-Dialectal Outline Dictionary (with an Aivilingmiutaq base). Nunavut Arctic College, Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada, 1998.. Budissin [mod. Bautzen] 1864.Iñupiat Eskimo dictionary, Alaska State Library, Donald H. Webster & Wilfried Zibell, 1970. Retrieved 23 March 2017. The Wekʼèezhìi (Tłı̨chǫ) people, a Dene (Athapascan) group, call the Arctic caribou and the boreal woodland caribou . The Gwichʼin (also a Dene group) have over 24 distinct caribou-related words.
Reindeer are also called by the Greenlandic InuitJerry McCarthy. Greenlandic word list. Reindeer are called (pl ) by the Greenlandic Inuit. and , sometimes , by the Icelanders.
Evolution The "glacial-interglacial cycles of the upper Pleistocene had a major influence on the evolution" of Rangifer species and other Arctic and sub-Arctic species. Isolation of tundra-adapted species Rangifer in Last Glacial Maximum refugia during the last glacial – the Wisconsin glaciation in North America and the Weichselian glaciation in Eurasia – shaped "intraspecific genetic variability" particularly between the North American and Eurasian parts of the Arctic.