Fallow Deer

S P E C I E S L I S T

Fallow Deer (Dama dama)

Fallow deer male portrait in autumn forest

The fallow deer (Dama dama) is a ruminant mammal belonging to the family Cervidae.
The male fallow deer is known as a buck, the female is a doe, and the young a fawn.

The species has great variations in the colour of their coats, with four main variants, “common”, “menil”, melanistic and leucistic – a genuine colour variety, not albinistic.
The white is the lightest coloured, almost white; common and menil are darker, and melanistic is very dark, sometimes even black (easily confused with the sika deer).

Only bucks have antlers, which are broad and shovel-shaped (palmate) from three years.
In the first two years the antler is a single spike.
They are grazing animals; their preferred habitat is mixed woodland and open grassland.

The fallow deer is a Eurasian deerthat was a native to most of Europe during the last Interglacial.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallow_deer