Cervidae of Southeast Asia

Abstract

Old World cervoids predominate in Southern and Eastern Asia: Of the 33 species (Groves & Grubb 1987), 13 are tropical Asiatic, 13 are Sino-Himalayan (as defined by Vaurie 1972) or are restricted to the flood plains of China’s majorrivers, and only seven are Palearctic in overall distribution. Of the “typical” plesiometacarpal deer (Cervus and allies), seven Southeast Asian genera or subgenera can be differentiated. Each is probably a natural clade (Groves & Grubb 1987). Indian and Indochinese species belong to flood-plain and deciduous woodland ungulate faunas, closely analogous to those of Africa but less diverse. These deer cannot be differentiated as a browsing guild, for some are as graminivorous as many of their African analogues, Rucervus species being particularly stenophagous (Kurt 1978; Martin 1977).