Published December 31, 2005 | Version v1
Taxonomic treatment Open

Rangifer tarandus

Description

Rangifer tarandus (Linnaeus 1758)

[Cervus] tarandus Linnaeus 1758, Syst. Nat., 10th ed., Vol. 1: 67.

Type Locality: "Habitat in Alpibus Europae et Asiae maxime septentrionalibus"; identified as Sweden, Alpine Lapland by Thomas (1911 a:151); based on domesticated stock.

Vernacular Names: Reindeer.

Subspecies::

Subspecies Rangifer tarandus subsp. tarandus Linnaeus 1758

Subspecies Rangifer tarandus subsp. buskensis Millais 1915

Subspecies Rangifer tarandus subsp. caboti G. M. Allen 1914

Subspecies Rangifer tarandus subsp. caribou Gmelin 1788

Subspecies Rangifer tarandus subsp. dawsoni Thompson-Seton 1900

Subspecies Rangifer tarandus subsp. fennicus Lönnberg 1909

Subspecies Rangifer tarandus subsp. groenlandicus Borowski 1780

Subspecies Rangifer tarandus subsp. osborni J. A. Allen 1902

Subspecies Rangifer tarandus subsp. pearsoni Lydekker 1903

Subspecies Rangifer tarandus subsp. pearyi J. A. Allen 1902

Subspecies Rangifer tarandus subsp. phylarchus Hollister 1912

Subspecies Rangifer tarandus subsp. platyrhynchus Vrolik 1829

Subspecies Rangifer tarandus subsp. sibiricus Murray 1866

Subspecies Rangifer tarandus subsp. terraenovae Bangs 1896

Distribution: Circumboreal in tundra and taiga from Svalbard, Norway, Finland, Russia, Alaska (USA) and Canada including most arctic islands, and Greenland, south to N Mongolia, China (Inner Mongolia; now only domesticated or feral?), Sakhalin Isl, and USA (N Idaho and Great Lakes region). Introduced to, and feral in, Iceland, Kerguelen Isls, South Georgia Isl, Pribilof Isls, St. Matthew Isl. Extinct in Sweden.

Conservation: U.S. ESA – Endangered as R. t. caribou in Canada (SE British Columbia at the Canadian-USA border, Columbia River, Kootenay River, Kootenay Lake, and Kootenai River) and USA (Idaho, Washington); IUCN – Endangered as R. t. pearyi, otherwise Lower Risk (lc). The woodland caribou is highly endangered throughout its distribution right into Ontario (V. Geist, in litt.).

Discussion: Subspecies have been placed in two divisions, compressicornis or Woodland Reindeer, and cylindricornis or Tundra Reindeer (Jacobi, 1931). These names of divisions are non-Linnean; cilindricornis Camerano, 1902 is a lapsus for cylindricornis and is not a Linnean name. An additional category has since been recognised for the Peary Caribou, due to marginal or seasonal sympatry between caribou in Arctic America, following Banfield (1963). Subspecies here considered valid are based on Banfield (1961), considerably modified by Geist (1998): caribou division or Woodland Caribou (includes also buskensis, valentinae, dawsoni, fennicus, and phylarchus); populations transitional between caribou and tarandus divisions (includes osborni); tarandus division, Barren-ground Caribou or Reindeer (includes also caboti, groenlandicus, pearsoni, sibiricus, and terraenovae); and platyrhynchus division (including pearyi or Peary Caribou and platyrhynchus or Svalbard Reindeer). The extinct insular dawsoni has been treated as a distinct species (Cowan and Guiguet, 1965) but does not differ from caribou or granti (= groenlandicus) in mtDNA sequences (Byun et al., 2002). Grouping the Svalbard Reindeer with the Peary Caribou is provisional (Groves and Grubb, 1987).

Notes

Published as part of Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Artiodactyla, pp. 637-722 in Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 1, Baltimore :The Johns Hopkins University Press on page 660, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7316519

Files

Files (4.1 kB)

Name Size Download all
md5:603949de11d75c75904bfc86f9f42807
4.1 kB Download

System files (19.7 kB)

Name Size Download all
md5:e0e515abc9ae058d2b0dc7cc2beff7fe
19.7 kB Download

Linked records

Additional details

Biodiversity

Scientific name authorship
Linnaeus
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Chordata
Order
Artiodactyla
Family
Cervidae
Genus
Rangifer
Species
tarandus
Taxon rank
species
Taxonomic concept label
Rangifer tarandus (Linnaeus, 1758) sec. Wilson & Reeder, 2005

References

  • Linnaeus, C. 1758. Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classis, ordines, genera, species cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Tenth ed. Vol. 1. Laurentii Salvii, Stockholm, 824 pp.
  • Thomas, O. 1911 a. The mammals of the tenth edition of Linnaeus; an attempt to fix the types of the genera and the exact bases and localities of the species. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1911: 120 - 158.
  • Allen, J. A. 1902. Mammal names proposed by Oken in his " Lehrbuch der Zoologie ". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 16: 373 - 379.
  • Hollister, N. 1912. The names of the Rocky Mountain goat. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 25: 185 - 186.
  • Murray, A. 1866. The geographical distribution of mammals. Day and Son, Ltd., London, 420 pp.
  • Jacobi, A. 1931. Das Rentier; eine zoologische Monographie der Gattung Rangifer. Zoologischer Anzeiger, Erganzungsband zu Band 96, 264 pp.
  • Banfield, A. W. F. 1963. The post glacial dispersal of American caribou. Proceedings of the 16 th International Congress of Zoology, Washington D. C., 1: 206.
  • Banfield, A. W. F. 1961. A revision of the reindeer and caribou. National Museum of Canada Bulletin, 177: 1 - 137.
  • Geist, V. 1998. Deer of the world. Their evolution, behavior and ecology. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pensylvania, 421 pp.
  • Cowan, I. McT., and C. J. Guiguet. 1965. The mammals of British Columbia. Third Ed. British Columbia Provincial Museum, Handbook, 11: 1 - 414.
  • Byun, S. A., B. F. Koop, and T. E. Reimchen. 2002. Evolution of the Dawson caribou (Rangifer tarandus dawsoni). Canadian Journal of Zoology, 80: 956 - 960.
  • Groves, C. P., and P. Grubb. 1987. Relationships of living deer. Pp. 2 l- 59, in Biology and management of the Cervidae (C. M. Wemmer, ed.). Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D. C., 577 pp.