Adaptive Characteristics of a Deer

Digestion

• Deer are ruminants, meaning that they chew, swallow, regurgitate and chew their food again in order to extract nutrients from hardy vegetable matter. They have a number of adaptations for this role. Instead of having sharp incisors like some some mammals, they have hard, flat plates to help them grind up the vegetation. The stomach is divided into four sections to allow food to be separated, regurgitated and fermented with microbes to allow nutrients to be extracted. This is an adaptation to the environment, but the digestive tract of a deer is not as powerful as that of a grazer such as a cow or sheep. To compensate, deer like to feed on more easily digested foods such as saplings and shoots.

Build

• Deer are generally lean, sleek animals with powerful legs. This makes them fast runners and good jumpers, enabling them to escape from predators by moving at high speed through dense undergrowth. Even heavy species like moose can manage a sprint of up to 35 mph. This is not quite enough to outrun their top predators, the wolf, who can run up to 40 mph, but it is enough to get away if they have a head start.

Coats

• Deer species sport a wide variety of coats that are adapted to suit their environments. They range in thickness from the shaggy, thick fur of Arctic species like reindeer to the very short hair of savanna-dwelling species. They also show a certain amount of variation in coloration. Generally the deer is best camouflaged to fit into the light browns of forest undergrowth. Many also have white spots along their backs to mimic the pattern of sunlight breaking through the trees onto the forest floor.

Senses

• Deer have a remarkably acute sense of smell. Combined with good hearing and sharp eyesight, this allows them to detect predators from a long distance away. Deer are known to moisten their noses with their tongues to make them more adhesive to airborne, odor-carrying particles. The strong sense of smell, combined with scent glands on their heads, legs and hooves, also allow deer to leave behind scent trails in order communicate social information about each other's size, gender and status.