title: The Nutcracker

text: Tchaikovsky was less satisfied with "The Nutcracker" than with "The Sleeping Beauty". (In the film "Fantasia", commentator Deems Taylor observes that he "really detested" the score.) Tchaikovsky accepted the commission from Vsevolozhsky but did not particularly want to write the ballet (though he did write to a friend while composing it, "I am daily becoming more and more attuned to my task").


title: The Nutcracker

text: Titles of all of the numbers listed here come from Marius Petipa's original scenario as well as the original libretto and programs of the first production of 1892. All libretti and programs of works performed on the stages of the Imperial Theatres were titled in French, which was the official language of the Imperial Court, as well as the language from which balletic terminology is derived.


title: The Nutcracker

text: List of acts, scenes (tableaux) and musical numbers, along with tempo indications. Numbers are given according to the original Russian and French titles of the first edition score (1892), the piano reduction score by Sergei Taneyev (1892), both published by P. Jurgenson in Moscow, and the Soviet collected edition of the composer's works, as reprinted Melville, New York: Belwin Mills [n.d.]


title: The Nutcracker

text: Tchaikovsky made a selection of eight of the numbers from the ballet before the ballet's December 1892 première, forming "The Nutcracker Suite", Op. 71a, intended for concert performance. The suite was first performed, under the composer's direction, on 19 March 1892 at an assembly of the Saint Petersburg branch of the Musical Society. The suite became instantly popular, with almost every number encored at its premiere, while the complete ballet did not begin to achieve its great popularity until after the George Balanchine staging became a hit in New York City. The suite became very popular on the concert stage, and was excerpted in Disney's "Fantasia", omitting the two movements prior to the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy . The outline below represents the selection and sequence of the "Nutcracker Suite" made by the composer:


title: The Nutcracker

text: The "Paraphrase on Tchaikovsky's Flower Waltz" is a successful piano arrangement from one of the movements from "The Nutcracker" by the pianist and composer Percy Grainger.


title: The Nutcracker

text: The pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev adapted some of the music into a virtuosic concert suite for piano solo:


title: The Nutcracker

text: Many recordings have been made since 1909 of the "Nutcracker Suite", which made its initial appearance on disc that year in what is now historically considered the first record album. This recording was conducted by Herman Finck and featured the London Palace Orchestra. But it was not until the LP album was developed that recordings of the complete ballet began to be made. Because of the ballet's approximate hour and a half length when performed without intermission, applause, or interpolated numbers, it fits very comfortably onto two LPs. Most CD recordings take up two discs, often with fillers. An exception is the 81-minute 1998 Philips recording by Valery Gergiev that fits onto one CD because of Gergiev's somewhat brisker speeds.


title: The Nutcracker

text: With the advent of the stereo LP coinciding with the growing popularity of the complete ballet, many other complete recordings of it have been made. Notable conductors who have done so include Maurice Abravanel, André Previn, Michael Tilson Thomas, Mariss Jansons, Seiji Ozawa, Richard Bonynge, Semyon Bychkov, Alexander Vedernikov, Ondrej Lenard, Mikhail Pletnev, and most recently, Simon Rattle. A CD of excerpts from the Tilson Thomas version had as its album cover art a painting of Mikhail Baryshnikov in his Nutcracker costume; perhaps this was due to the fact that the Tilson Thomas recording was released by CBS Masterworks, and CBS had first telecast the Baryshnikov "Nutcracker".


title: The Nutcracker

text: There have been two major theatrical film versions of the ballet, made within seven years of each other, and both were given soundtrack albums.


title: The Nutcracker

text: Neither Ormandy, Reiner, nor Fiedler ever recorded a complete version of the ballet; however, Kunzel's album of excerpts runs 73 minutes, containing more than two-thirds of the music. Conductor Neeme Järvi has recorded act 2 of the ballet complete, along with excerpts from "Swan Lake". The music is played by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.


title: The Nutcracker

text: In 2013, "Dance Magazine" printed the opinions of three directors. Ronald Alexander of Steps on Broadway and The Harlem School of the Arts said the characters in some of the dances were "borderline caricatures, if not downright demeaning". He also said some productions had made changes to improve this. In the Arabian dance, for example, it was not necessary to portray a woman as a "seductress", showing too much skin. Alexander tried a more positive portrayal of the Chinese, but this was replaced by the more traditional version, despite positive reception. Stoner Winslett of the Richmond Ballet said "The Nutcracker" was not racist and that her productions had a "diverse cast". Donald Byrd of Spectrum Dance Theater saw the ballet as Eurocentric and not racist. Chloe Angyal, in Feministing, referred to "unbelievably offensive racial and ethnic stereotypes". Some people who have performed in productions of the ballet do not see a problem because they are continuing what is viewed as "a tradition". According to George Balanchine, "Coffee" was a sensuous belly dance intended for the fathers, not the children.


title: The Nutcracker

text: In "The New Republic" in 2014, Alice Robb described white people wearing "harem pants and a straw hat, eyes painted to look slanted" and "wearing chopsticks in their black wigs" in the Chinese dance. The Arabian dance, she said, has a woman who "slinks around the stage in a belly shirt, bells attached to her ankles". One of the problems, Robb said, was the use of white people to play ethnic roles, because of the directors' desire for everyone to look the same.


title: The Nutcracker

text: Among the attempts to change the dances were Austin McCormick making the Arabian dance into a pole dance, and San Francisco Ballet and Pittsburgh Ballet Theater changing the Chinese dance to a dragon dance.


title: The Nutcracker

text: Alastair Macaulay of "The New York Times" defended Tchaikovsky, saying he "never intended his Chinese and Arabian music to be ethnographically correct". He said, "their extraordinary color and energy are far from condescending, and they make the world of 'The Nutcracker' larger." To change anything is to "unbalance "The Nutcracker"" with music the author did not write. If there were stereotypes, Tchaikovsky also used them in representing his own country of Russia. Moreover, the Votkinsk-born composer is perceived as a part of cultural heritage of Finnic peoples (non-Indo-European).


title: The Nutcracker

text: University of California, Irvine professor Jennifer Fisher said in 2018 that a two-finger salute used in the Chinese dance was not a part of the culture. Though it might have had its source in a Mongolian chopstick dance, she called it "heedless insensitivity to stereotyping". She also complained about the use in the Chinese dance of "bobbing, subservient 'kowtow' steps, Fu Manchu mustaches, and ... yellowface" makeup, compared to blackface. One concern she had was that dancers believed they were learning about Asian culture, when they were really experiencing a cartoon version.


title: The Nutcracker

text: Fisher went on to say some ballet companies were recognizing that change had to happen. Georgina Pazcoguin of the New York City Ballet and former dancer Phil Chan started the "Final Bow for Yellowface" movement and created a web site which explained the history of the practices and suggested changes. One of their points was that only the Chinese dance made dancers look like an ethnic group other than the one they belonged to. The New York City Ballet went on to drop geisha wigs and makeup and change some dance moves. Some other ballet companies followed.


title: The Nutcracker

text: Several films having little or nothing to do with the ballet or the original Hoffmann tale have used its music:


title: The Nutcracker

text: There have been several recorded children's adaptations of the E.T.A. Hoffmann story (the basis for the ballet) using Tchaikovsky's music, some quite faithful, some not. One that was not was a version titled "The Nutcracker Suite for Children", narrated by Metropolitan Opera announcer Milton Cross, which used a two-piano arrangement of the music. It was released as a 78-RPM album set in the 1940s. For the children's label Peter Pan Records, actor Victor Jory narrated a condensed adaptation of the story with excerpts from the score. It was released on one side of a 45-RPM disc. A later version, titled "The Nutcracker Suite", starred Denise Bryer and a full cast, was released in the 1960s on LP and made use of Tchaikovsky's music in the original orchestral arrangements. It was quite faithful to Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", on which the ballet is based, even to the point of including the section in which Clara cuts her arm on the glass toy cabinet, and also mentioning that she married the Prince at the end. It also included a less gruesome version of "The Tale of the Hard Nut", the tale-within-a-tale in Hoffmann's story. It was released as part of the Tale Spinners for Children series.


title: The Nutcracker

text: Spike Jones produced a 78 rpm record set "Spike Jones presents for the kiddies The Nutcracker Suite (with Apologies to Tchaikovsky)" in 1944. It includes the tracks: "The Little Girl's Dream", "Land of the Sugar Plum Fairy", "The Fairy Ball", "The Mysterious Room", "Back to the Fairy Ball" and "End of the Little Girl's Dream". This is all done in typical Spike Jones style, with the addition of choruses and some swing music. The entire recording is available at archive.com


title: Reindeer

text: Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and "reindeer" if domesticated) are deer in the genus Rangifer. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, Rangifer tarandus, with about 10 subspecies. A 2022 revision of the genus elevated five of the subspecies to species (see Taxonomy below). They have a circumpolar distribution and are native to the Arctic, sub-Arctic, tundra, boreal forest, and mountainous regions of northern Europe, Siberia, and North America.


title: Reindeer

text: 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.


title: Reindeer

text: Reindeer vary greatly in size and color from the smallest species, the Svalbard reindeer ("R. t. platyrhynchus"), to the largest subspecies, 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 species and subspecies.


title: Reindeer

text: Reindeer are the only successfully semi-domesticated deer on a large scale in the world, and both wild and domesticated reindeer have been an important source of food, clothing, and shelter for Arctic people throughout history and are still herded and hunted today. Wild reindeer "may well be the species of single greatest importance in the entire anthropological literature on hunting." 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.


title: Reindeer

text: Names follow international convention before the recent revision (see Taxonomy below). Reindeer/caribou ("Rangifer") vary in size from the smallest species, the Svalbard reindeer ("R. t. platyrhynchus"), to the largest subspecies, Osborn's caribou ("R. t. osborni"). They also vary in coat color and antler architecture.


title: Reindeer

text: The North American range of caribou extends from Alaska through the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut throughout the tundra, taiga and boreal forest and south through the Canadian Rockies. Of the seven subspecies, the migratory mainland barren-ground caribou of Arctic Alaska and Canada ("R. t. groenlandicus"), 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; Osborn's caribou ("R. t. osborni") and three other subspecies are montane. The extinct, insular Queen Charlotte Islands caribou ("R. t. dawsoni"), lived on Graham Island in Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands).


title: Reindeer

text: The boreal woodland caribou ("R. t. caribou"), lives in the boreal forest of Labrador and Newfoundland of northeastern Canada: the Labrador or Ungava caribou ("R. t. caboti"), and the Newfoundland caribou ("R. t. terranovae") have been found to be genetically in the woodland caribou lineage.


title: Reindeer

text: In Eurasia, both wild and domesticated reindeer are distributed across the tundra and into the taiga. Eurasian tundra reindeer ("R. t. tarandus") are close to North American reindeer 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", called "R. t. buskensis" by American taxonomists) occupies the Altai and Sayan Mountains.


title: Reindeer

text: 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).


title: Reindeer

text: About 25,000 mountain reindeer ("R. t. tarandus") still range the mountains of Norway, notably in Hardangervidda, with smaller numbers in Sweden. Russia manages 19 herds of Siberian tundra reindeer ("R. t. sibiricus") that total about 940,000. 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. Kamchatka reindeer, a forest type ("R. t. phylarchus") 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 stable or increasing since 2000.


title: Reindeer

text: Insular (island) reindeer, classified as 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 domestic or domestic-wild hybrids), the New Siberia archipelago (about 10,000 to 15,000), and Wrangel Island (200 to 300 feral domesticated reindeer).


title: Reindeer

text: What was once the second largest herd is the migratory Labrador caribou ("R. t. caboti") George River herd in Canada, with former variations between 28,000 and 385,000. 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 centre in Canada, caribou were considered extirpated from the contiguous United States. The Committee on Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) classified the Southern Mountain and Central Mountain populations as Endangered and the Northern Mountain population, "R. t. osborni", as Threatened.


title: Reindeer

text: Some species and subspecies are rare and three subspecies have already become extinct: the Queen Charlotte Islands caribou from western Canada, Seton's reindeer 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. 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 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 now recognized as 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 IUCN.


title: Reindeer

text: Charles Hamilton Smith is credited with the name "Rangifer" for the reindeer genus, which Albertus Magnus used in his "De animalibus", fol. Liber 22, Cap. 268: "Dicitur Rangyfer quasi ramifer". This word may go back to the Saami word "raingo". Carl Linnaeus chose the word "tarandus" as the specific epithet, making reference to Ulisse Aldrovandi's "Quadrupedum omnium bisulcorum historia" fol. 859–863, Cap. 30: De Tarando (1621). However, Aldrovandi and Conrad Gessner thought that "rangifer" and "tarandus" were two separate animals. In any case, the "tarandos" name goes back to Aristotle and Theophrastus.


title: Reindeer

text: 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." The word "rein" is of Norse origin. The word "deer" was originally broader in meaning but became more specific over time. In Middle English, "der" meant a wild animal of any kind, in contrast to "cattle". The word "caribou" comes through French, from the Mi'kmaq "qalipu", meaning "snow shoveler", and refers to its habit of pawing through the snow for food.


title: Reindeer

text: Because of its importance to many cultures, "Rangifer" and some of its subspecies have names in many languages. Inuvaluit of the western Canadian Arctic and Inuit of the eastern Canadian Arctic, who speak different dialects of Inuktitut, both call the barren-ground caribou "tuktu". The Wekʼèezhìi people, a Dene (Athapascan) group, call Arctic caribou "Ɂekwǫ̀" and the boreal woodland caribou "tǫdzı". The Gwich'in people (also a Dene group) have over 24 distinct caribou-related words.


title: Reindeer

text: The "glacial-interglacial cycles of the upper Pleistocene had a major influence on the evolution" of "Rangifer" species and other Arctic and subarctic 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.


title: Reindeer

text: Reindeer/caribou ("Rangifer") are in the subfamily Odocoileinae, along with roe deer ("Capreolus"), moose ("Alces"), and Chinese water deer ("Hydropotes"). These antlered cervids split from the horned ruminants "Bos" (cattle and yak), "Ovis" (sheep) and "Capra" (goats) about 36 million years ago. The Eurasian clade of Odocoileinae (Capreolini, Hydropotini and Alcini) split from the New World tribes of Capreolinae (Odocoileini and Rangiferini) in the Late Miocene, 8.7–9.6 million years ago. "Rangifer" “evolved as a mountain deer, ...exploiting the subalpine and alpine meadows...”. "Rangifer" originated Late Plioicene and diversified in the Early Pleistocene, a 2+ million-year period of multiple glacier advances and retreats. Several named "Rangifer" fossils in Eurasia and North America predate the evolution of modern tundra reindeer.


title: Reindeer

text: Archaeologists distinguish “modern” tundra reindeer and barren-ground caribou from primitive forms — living and extinct — that did not have adaptations to extreme cold and to long-distance migration. They include a broad, high muzzle to increase the volume of the nasal cavity to warm and moisten the air before it enters the throat and lungs, bez tines set close to the brow tines, distinctive coat patterns, short legs and other adaptations for running long distances, and multiple behaviors suited to tundra, but not to forest (such as synchronized calving and aggregation during rutting and post-calving). As well, many genes, including those for vitamin D metabolism, fat metabolism, retinal development, circadian rhythm, and tolerance to cold temperatures, are found in tundra caribou that are lacking or rudimentary in forest types. For this reason, forest-adapted reindeer and caribou could not survive in tundra or polar deserts. The oldest undoubted "Rangifer" fossil is from Omsk, Russia) dated to 2.1-1.8 Ma. The oldest North American "Rangifer" fossil is from the Yukon, 1.6 million years before present (BP). A fossil skull fragment from Süßenborn, Germany, "R. arcticus stadelmanni", (which is probably misnamed) with “rather thin and cylinder-shaped” antlers, dated to the Middle Pleistocene (Günz) Period, 680,000-620,000 BP. "Rangifer" fossils become increasingly frequent in circumpolar deposits beginning with the Riss glaciations, the second youngest of the Pleistocene Epoch, roughly 300,000–130,000 BP. By the 4-Würm period (110,000–70,000 to 12,000–10,000 BP), its European range was extensive, supplying a major food source for prehistoric Europeans. North American fossils outside of Beringia that predate the LGM are of Rancholabrean age (240,000–11,000 years BP) and occur along the fringes of the Rocky Mountain and Laurentide ice sheets as far south as northern Alabama; and in Sangamonian deposits (~100,000 years BP) from western Canada.


title: Reindeer

text: A Pearyi-sized caribou occupied Greenland before and after the LGM and persisted in a relict enclave in northeastern Greenland until it went extinct about 1900 (see discussion of "R. t. eogroenlandicus" below). Archaeological excavations showed that larger barren-ground-sized caribou appeared in western Greenland about 4,000 years ago.


title: Reindeer

text: The late Valerius Geist (1998) dates the Eurasian reindeer radiation dates to the large Riss glaciation (347,000 to 128,000 years ago), based on the Norwegian-Svalbard split 225,000 years ago. Eurasian forest reindeer ("R. t. fennicus") likely evolved from "Cervus [Rangifer] geuttardi" Desmarest, 1822, a reindeer that adapted to forest habitats in Eastern Europe as forests expanded during an interglacial period before the LGM (the Würmian or Weichsel glaciation);. The fossil species "geuttardi" was later replaced by "R. constantini", which was adapted for grasslands, in a second immigration 19,000–20,000 years ago when the LGM turned its forest habitats into tundra, while "fennicus" survived in isolation in southwestern Europe. "R. constantini" was then replaced by modern tundra/barren-ground caribou adapted to extreme cold, probably in Beringia, before dispersing west ("R. t. tarandus" in the Scandinavian mountains and "R. t. sibiricus" across Siberia) and east ("R. t. groenlandicus" in the North American Barrenlands) when rising seas isolated them. Likewise in North America, DNA analysis shows that woodland caribou ("R. caribou") diverged from primitive ancestors of tundra/barren-ground caribou not during the last glacial maximum, 26,000–19,000 years ago, as previously assumed, but in the Middle Pleistocene around 357,000 years ago. At that time, modern tundra caribou had not even evolved. Woodland caribou are likely more related to extinct forest caribou subspecies than to barren-ground caribou. For example, the extinct caribou "Torontoceros [Rangifer] hypogaeus", had features (robust and short pedicles, smooth antler surface, and high position of second tine) that relate it to forest caribou.


title: Reindeer

text: Humans started hunting reindeer in both the Mesolithic and Neolithic Periods and humans are today the main predator in many areas. Norway and Greenland have unbroken traditions of hunting wild reindeer from the last glacial period until the present day. In the non-forested mountains of central Norway, such as Jotunheimen, it is still possible to find remains of stone-built trapping pits, guiding fences and bow rests, built especially for hunting reindeer. These can, with some certainty, be dated to the Migration Period, although it is not unlikely that they have been in use since the Stone Age.


title: Reindeer

text: Carl Linnaeus in 1758 named the Eurasian tundra species "Cervus tarandus", the genus "Rangifer" being credited to Smith, 1827.


title: Reindeer

text: "Rangifer" has had a convoluted history because of the similarity in antler architecture (brow tines asymmetrical and often palmate, bez tines, a back tine sometimes branched, and branched at the distal end, often palmate). Because of individual variability, early taxonomists were unable to discern consistent patterns among populations, nor could they, examining collections in Europe, appreciate the difference in habitats and the differing function they imposed on antler architecture. For example, woodland caribou males, rutting in boreal forest where only a few females can be found, collect harems and defend them against other males, for which they have short, straight, strong, much-branched antlers, beams flattened in cross-section, designed for combat—and not too large, so as not to impede them in forested winter ranges. By contrast, modern (see Evolution above) tundra caribou have synchronized calving as a predator-avoidance strategy, which requires large rutting aggregations. Males cannot defend a harem because, while he was busy fighting, they would disappear into the mass of the herd. Males therefore tend individual females; their fights are infrequent and brief. Their antlers are thin, beams round in cross-section, sweep back and then forward with a cluster of branches at the top; these are designed more for visual stimulation of the females. Their bez tines are set low, just above the brow tine, which is vertically flattened to protect the eyes while the buck "threshes" low brush, a courtship display. The low bez tines help the wide flat brow tines dig craters in the hard-packed tundra snow for forage, for which reason brow tines are often called "shovels" in North America and "ice tines" in Europe. The differences in antler architecture reflect fundamental differences in ecology and behavior, and in turn deep divisions in ancestry that were not apparent to the early taxonomists.


title: Reindeer

text: Similarly, working on museum collections where skins were often faded and in poor states of preservation, early taxonomists could not readily perceive differences in coat patterns that are consistent within a subspecies, but variable among them. Geist calls these "nuptial" characteristics: sexually selected characters that are highly conserved and diagnostic among subspecies.


title: Reindeer

text: Towards the end of the 19th century, national museums began sending out biological exploration expeditions and collections accumulated. Taxonomists, usually working for the museums began naming subspecies more rigorously, based on statistical differences in detailed cranial, dental and skeletal measurements than antlers and pelage, supplemented by better knowledge of differences in ecology and behavior. From 1898 to 1937, mammalogists named 12 new species (other than barren-ground and woodland, which had been named earlier) of caribou in Canada and Alaska, and three new species and nine new subspecies in Eurasia, each properly described according to the evolving rules of zoological nomenclature, with type localities designated and type specimens deposited in museums (see table in Species and subspecies below).


title: Reindeer

text: In the mid-20th century, as definitions of "species" evolved, mammalogists in Europe and North America made all "Rangifer" species conspecific with "R. tarandus", and synonymized most of the subspecies. Banfield's often-cited "A Revision of the Reindeer and Caribou, Genus" Rangifer (1961), eliminated "R. t. caboti" (the Labrador caribou), "R. t. osborni" (Osborn's caribou — from British Columbia) and "R. t. terranovae" (the Newfoundland caribou) as invalid and included only barren-ground caribou, renamed as "R. t. groenlandicus" (formerly "R. arcticus") and woodland caribou as "R. t. caribou". However, Banfield made multiple errors, eliciting a scathing review by Ian McTaggart-Cowan in 1962. Most authorities continued to consider all or most subspecies valid; some are quite distinct. In his chapter in the authoritative 2005 reference work "Mammal Species of the World", referenced by the American Society of Mammalogists, English zoologist Peter Grubb agreed with Valerius Geist, specialist on large mammals, that these subspecies were valid (i.e., before the recent revision): In North America, "R. t. caboti", "R. t. caribou", "R. t. dawsoni", "R. t. groenlandicus", "R. t. osborni", "R. t. pearyi", and "R. t. terranovae"; and in Eurasia, "R. t. tarandus", "R. t. buskensis" (called "R. t. valentinae" in Europe; see below), "R. t. phylarchus", "R. t. pearsoni", "R. t. sibiricus" and "R. t. platyrhynchus". These subspecies were retained in the 2011 replacement work "Handbook of Mammals of the World vol. 2: Hoofed Mammals". Most Russian authors also recognized "R. t. angustirostris", a forest reindeer east of Lake Baikal"."


title: Reindeer

text: However, since 1991, many genetic studies have revealed deep divergence between modern tundra reindeer and woodland caribou. Geist (2007) and others continued arguing that the woodland caribou was incorrectly classified, noting that "true woodland caribou, the uniformly dark, small-maned type with the frontally emphasized, flat-beamed antlers", which is "scattered thinly along the southern rim of North American caribou distribution" He affirms that the "true woodland caribou is very rare, in very great difficulties and requires the most urgent of attention."


title: Reindeer

text: In 2011, noting that the former classifications of "Rangifer tarandus", either with prevailing taxonomy on subspecies, designations based on ecotypes, or natural population groupings, failed to capture "the variability of caribou across their range in Canada" needed for effective subspecies conservation and management, COSEWIC developed Designated Unit (DU) attribution, an adaptation of "evolutionary significant units". The 12 designated units for caribou in Canada (that is, excluding Alaska and Greenland), based on ecology, behavior and, importantly, genetics (but excluding morphology and archaeology) essentially followed the previously-named subspecies distributions, without naming them as such, plus some ecotypes. Ecotypes are not phylogenetically based and cannot substitute for taxonomy.


title: Reindeer

text: Meanwhile, genetic data continued to accumulate, revealing sufficiently deep divisions to easily separate "Rangifer" back into six previously named species and to resurrect several previously named subspecies. Molecular data showed that Greenland caribou ("R. t. groenlandicus") and Svalbard reindeer ("R. t. platyrhynchus"), although not closely related to each other, were the most genetically divergent among "Rangifer" clades; that modern (see Evolution above) Eurasian tundra reindeer ("R. t. tarandus", "R. t. sibiricus") and North American barren-ground caribou ("R. t. groenlandicus"), although sharing ancestry, were separable at the subspecies level; that Eurasian forest reindeer ("R. t. fennicus") clustered well apart from both wild and domesticated tundra reindeer and that woodland caribou ("R. t. caribou") were separable from all others. Meanwhile archaeological evidence was accumulating that Eurasian forest reindeer descended from an extinct forest-adapted reindeer and not from tundra reindeer (see Evolution above); since they do not share a direct common ancestor, they cannot be conspecific. Similarly, woodland caribou diverged from the ancestors of Arctic caribou before modern barren-ground caribou had evolved, and were more likely related to extinct North American forest reindeer (see Evolution above). Lacking a direct shared ancestor, barren-ground and woodland caribou cannot be conspecific.


title: Reindeer

text: Molecular data also revealed that the four western Canadian montane ecotypes are not woodland caribou: they share a common ancestor with modern barren-ground/tundra reindeer and caribou, but distantly, having diverged > 60,000 years ago — before the modern ecotypes had evolved their cold- and darkness-adapted physiologies and mass-migration and aggregation behaviors, as noted above in Evolution. Before Banfield (1961), taxonomists using cranial, dental and skeletal measurements had unequivocally allied these western montane ecotypes with barren-ground caribou, naming them (as in Osgood 1909 Murie, 1935 and Anderson 1946, among others) "R. a. stonei", "R. a. montanus", "R. a. fortidens" and "R. a. osborni", respectively, and this phylogeny was confirmed by genetic analysis.


title: Reindeer

text: DNA also revealed two unnamed clades that, based on genetic distance, genetic divergence and shared vs. private haplotypes and alleles, together with ecological and behavioral differences, may justify separation at the subspecies level: the Atlantic-Gaspésie caribou (COSEWIC DU11), an eastern montane ecotype, and the Baffin Island caribou. Neither clade has been formally named.


title: Reindeer

text: Jenkins et al. (2012) said that "[Baffin Island] caribou are unique compared to other Barrenground herds, as they do not overwinter in forested habitat, nor do all caribou undertake long seasonal migrations to calving areas." It also shares a mtDNA haplotype with Labrador caribou, in the North American lineage (i.e., woodland caribou). Røed et al. (1991) had noted:Among Baffin Island caribou the TFL2 allele was the most common allele (p=0.521), while this allele was absent, or present in very low frequencies, in other caribou populations (Table 1), including the Canadian barren-ground caribou from the Beverly herd. A large genetic difference between Baffin Island caribou and the Beverly herd was also indicated by eight alleles found in the Beverly herd which were absent from the Baffin Island samples.Jenkins et al. (2018) also reported genetic distinctiveness of Baffin Island caribou from all other barren-ground caribou; its genetic signature was not found on the mainland or on other islands; nor were Beverly herd (the nearest mainly barren-ground caribou) alleles present in Baffin Island caribou, evidence of reproductive isolation.


title: Reindeer

text: These advances in "Rangifer" genetics were brought together with previous morphological-based descriptions, ecology, behavior and archaeology to propose a new revision of the genus.


title: Reindeer

text: Abbreviations: AMNH American Museum of Natural History; BCPM British Columbia Provincial Museum (= RBCM Royal British Columbia Museum), NHMUK British Museum (Natural History) (originally BMNH), DMNH Denver Museum of Natural History, MCZ Museum of Comparative Zoology, MSI Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, NMC National Museum of Canada (originally the CGS Canadian Geological Survey Museum, now CMN Canadian Museum of Nature), NR Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet, RSMNH Royal Swedish Museum of Natural History, USNM, U. S. National Museum, ZMASL Zoological Museum of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (formerly the Zoological Museum of the Academy of Sciences), Leningrad


title: Reindeer

text: The table above includes, as per the new revision, "R. c. caboti" (the Labrador caribou, Eastern Migratory population DU), and "R. c. terranovae" (the Newfoundland caribou DU5), which molecular analyses have shown to be of North American (i.e., woodland caribou) lineage; and four mountain ecotypes now known to be of distant Beringia-Eurasia lineage(see Taxonomy above).


title: Reindeer

text: The name "Tarandus rangifer buskensis" Millais, 1915, the Busk Mountains reindeer, was selected as the senior synonym to "R. t. valentinae" Flerov, 1933, in "Mammalian Species of the World" but Russian authors do not recognize Millais and Millais' articles in a hunting travelogue, "The Gun at Home and Abroad," seem short of a taxonomic authority.


title: Reindeer

text: The name "groenlandicus" is fraught with problems. Edwards (1743)illustrated and claimed to have seen a male specimen (“head of perfect horns...”) from Greenland and said that a Captain Craycott had brought a live pair from Greenland to England in 1738. He named it "Capra groenlandicus", Greenland reindeer. Linnaeus, in the 12 edition of Systema naturae, gave "grœnlandicus" as a synonym for "Cervus tarandus." Borowski,disagreed (and again changed the spelling), saying "Cervus grönlandicus", was morphologically distinct from Eurasian tundra reindeer. Baird placed it under the genus "Rangifer" as "R. grœnlandicus." It went back and forth as a full species or subspecies of the barren-ground caribou ("R. arcticus") or a subspecies of "R. tarandus", but always as the Greenland reindeer/caribou. Taxonomists consistently documented morphological differences between Greenland and other caribou/reindeer in cranial measurements, dentition, antler architecture, etc. Then Banfield (1961) in his famously flawed revision, gave the name "groenlandicus" to all the barren-ground caribou in North America, Greenland included because "groenlandicus" pre-dates Richardson’s "R. arctus". However, because genetic data shows the Greenland caribou to be the most distantly related of any caribou to all the others (genetic distance, FST = 44%, whereas most cervid (deer family) species have a genetic distance of 2% to 5%)--as well as behavoral and morphological differences--a recent revision returned it to species status as "R. groenlandicus". Although it has been assumed that the larger caribou that appeared in Greenland 4,000 years ago originated from Baffin Island (itself unique; see Taxonomy above), a reconstruction of LGM glacial retreat and caribou advance (Yannic et al. 2013) shows colonization by NAL lineage caribou more likely. Their PCA and tree diagrams show Greenland caribou clustering outside of the Beringian-Eurasian lineage.


title: Reindeer

text: The name "R. a. granti" has a very interesting history. Allen (1902) named it as a distinct species, "R. granti", from "western end of Alaska Peninsula, opposite Popoff Island" and noting that:"Rangifer granti" is a representative of the Barren Ground group of Caribou, which includes "R. arcticus" of the Arctic Coast and "R. granlandicus" of Greenland. It is not closely related to "R. stonei" of the Kenai Peninsula, from which it differs not only in its very much smaller size, but in important cranial characters and in coloration. ... The external and cranial differences between "R. granti" and the various forms of the Woodland Caribou are so great in almost every respect that no detailed comparison is necessary. ... According to Mr. Stone, "Rangifer granti" inhabits the " barren land of Alaska Peninsula, ranging well up into the mountains in summer, but descending to the lower levels in winter, generally feeding on the low flat lands near the coast and in the foothills... As regards cranial characters no comparison is necessary with "R. montanus" or with any of the woodland forms."Osgood and Murie (1935), agreeing with "granti"s close relationship with barren-ground caribou, brought it under "R. arcticus" as a subspecies, "R. a. granti". Anderson (1946) and Banfield (1961), based on statistical analysis of cranial, dental and other characters, agreed. But Banfield (1961) also synonymized Alaska's large "R. stonei" with other mountain caribou of British Columbia and the Yukon as invalid subspecies of woodland caribou, then "R. t. caribou". This left the small, migratory barren-ground caribou of Alaska and the Yukon, including the Porcupine caribou herd, without a name, which Banfield rectified in his 1974 "Mammals of Canada" by extending to them the name ""granti"". The late Valerius Geist (1998), in the only error of his whole illustrious career, re-analyzed Banfield's data with additional specimens found in an unpublished report he cites as "Skal, 1982", was "not able to find diagnostic features that could segregate this form from the western barren ground type." But Skal 1982 had included specimens from the "eastern" end of the Alaska Peninsula and the Kenai Peninsula, the range of the larger Stone's caribou! Later, geneticists comparing barren-ground caribou of Alaska with those of mainland Canada found little difference and they all became the former "R. t. groenlandicus" (now "R. a. arcticus"). "R. a. granti" was lost in the oblivion of invalid taxonomy until Alaskan researchers sampled some small, pale caribou from the western end of the Alaska Peninsula, their range enclosing the type locality designated by Allen (1902) and found them to be genetically distinct from all other caribou in Alaska. Thus, "granti" was rediscovered, its range restricted to that originally described.


title: Reindeer

text: Stone's caribou ("R. a. stonei"), a large montane type, was described from the Kenai Peninsula (where, apparently, it was never common except in years of great abundance), the eastern end of the Alaska Peninsula, and mountains throughout southern and eastern Alaska. It was placed under "R. arcticus" as a subspecies, "R. a. stonei", and later synonymised as noted above. The same genetic analyses mentioned above for "R. a. granti" resulted in resurrecting "R. a. stonei".


title: Reindeer

text: Seton's reindeer ("R. f. setoni"), endemic to Sakhalin, was described as "Rangifer tarandus setoni" by Flerov, 1933, but Banfield (1961) brought it under "R. t. fennicus" as a junior synonym. The wild reindeer on the island are apparently extinct, having been replaced by domestic reindeer.


title: Reindeer

text: Some of the "Rangifer" species and subspecies may be further divided by ecotype depending on several behavioral factors – predominant habitat use (northern, tundra, mountain, forest, boreal forest, forest-dwelling, woodland, woodland (boreal), woodland (migratory) or woodland (mountain), spacing (dispersed or aggregated) and migration patterns (sedentary or migratory). North American examples are the Torngat Mountains caribou DU10, an ecotype of "R. c. caboti"; a recently discovered, unnamed clade between the Mackenzie River and Great Bear Lake of Beringian-Eurasian lineage, an ecotype of "R. a. osborni"; the Atlantic-Gaspésie caribou DU11, an eastern montane ecotype of woodland caribou ("R. c. caribou") DU6; the Baffin Island caribou, an ecotype of the barren-ground caribou ("R. a. arcticus"); and the Dolphin and Union “herd”, another ecotype of "R. a. arcticus". The last three of these likely qualify as subspecies, but have not yet been formally described.


title: Reindeer

text: Naming in this and following sections follows the taxonomy in the authoritative 2011 reference work, Handbook of Mammals vol. 2 Hoofed Mammals.


title: Reindeer

text: In most cervid species, only males grow antlers; the reindeer is the only cervid species in which females also grow them normally. Androgens play an essential role in the antler formation of cervids. The antlerogenic genes in reindeer have more sensitivity to androgens in comparison with other cervids.


title: Reindeer

text: There is considerable variation among subspecies in the size of the antlers (e.g., they are rather small and spindly in the northernmost subspecies), but on average the bull's antlers are the second largest of any extant deer, after those of the male moose. In the largest subspecies, the antlers of large bulls can range up to in width and in beam length. They have the largest antlers relative to body size among living deer species. Antler size measured in number of points reflects the nutritional status of the reindeer and climate variation of its environment. The number of points on male reindeer increases from birth to 5 years of age and remains relatively constant from then on. "In male caribou, antler mass (but not the number of tines) varies in concert with body mass." While antlers of male woodland caribou are typically smaller than those of male barren-ground caribou, they can be over across. They are flattened in cross-section, compact and relatively dense. Geist describes them as frontally emphasized, flat-beamed antlers. Woodland caribou antlers are thicker and broader than those of the barren-ground caribou and their legs and heads are longer. Quebec-Labrador male caribou antlers can be significantly larger and wider than other woodland caribou. Central barren-ground male caribou antlers are perhaps the most diverse in configuration and can grow to be very high and wide. Osborn's caribou antlers are typically the most massive, with the largest circumference measurements.


title: Reindeer

text: The antlers' main beams begin at the brow "extending posterior over the shoulders and bowing so that the tips point forward. The prominent, palmate brow tines extend forward, over the face." The antlers typically have two separate groups of points, lower and upper.


title: Reindeer

text: Antlers begin to grow on male reindeer in March or April and on female reindeer in May or June. This process is called antlerogenesis. Antlers grow very quickly every year on the bulls. As the antlers grow, they are covered in thick velvet, filled with blood vessels and spongy in texture. The antler velvet of the barren-ground caribou and the boreal woodland caribou is dark chocolate brown. The velvet that covers growing antlers is a highly vascularised skin. This velvet is dark brown on woodland or barren-ground caribou and slate-grey on Peary caribou and the Dolphin-Union caribou herd. Velvet lumps in March can develop into a rack measuring more than a metre in length by August.


title: Reindeer

text: When the antler growth is fully grown and hardened, the velvet is shed or rubbed off. To the Inuit, for whom the caribou is a "culturally important keystone species", the months are named after landmarks in the caribou life cycle. For example, "amiraijaut" in the Igloolik region is "when velvet falls off caribou antlers."


title: Reindeer

text: Male reindeer use their antlers to compete with other males during the mating season. Butler (1986) showed that the social requirements of caribou females during the rut determines the mating strategies of males and, consequently, the form of male antlers. In describing woodland caribou, which have a harem-defense mating system, SARA wrote, "During the rut, males engage in frequent and furious sparring battles with their antlers. Large males with large antlers do most of the mating." Reindeer continue to migrate until the bulls have spent their back fat. By contrast, barren-ground caribou males tend individual females and their fights are brief and much less intense; consequently, their antlers are long, and thin, round in cross-section and less branched and are designed more for show (or sexual attraction) than fighting.


title: Reindeer

text: In late autumn or early winter after the rut, male reindeer lose their antlers, growing a new pair the next summer with a larger rack than the previous year. Female reindeer keep their antlers until they calve. In the Scandinavian and Arctic Circle populations, old bulls' antlers fall off in late December, young bulls' antlers fall off in the early spring, and cows' antlers fall off in the summer.


title: Reindeer

text: When male reindeer shed their antlers in early to midwinter, the antlered cows acquire the highest ranks in the feeding hierarchy, gaining access to the best forage areas. These cows are healthier than those without antlers. Calves whose mothers do not have antlers are more prone to disease and have a significantly higher mortality. Cows in good nutritional condition, for example, during a mild winter with good winter range quality, may grow new antlers earlier as antler growth requires high intake.


title: Reindeer

text: According to a respected Igloolik elder, Noah Piugaattuk, who was one of the last outpost camp leaders, caribou ("tuktu") antlers


title: Reindeer

text: According to the "Igloolik Oral History Project" (IOHP), "Caribou antlers provided the Inuit with a myriad of implements, from snow knives and shovels to drying racks and seal-hunting tools. A complex set of terms describes each part of the antler and relates it to its various uses". Currently, the larger racks of antlers are used by Inuit as materials for carving. Iqaluit-based Jackoposie Oopakak's 1989 carving, entitled "Nunali", which means ""place where people live", and which is part of the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Canada, includes a massive set of caribou antlers on which he has intricately carved the miniaturised world of the Inuit where "Arctic birds, caribou, polar bears, seals, and whales are interspersed with human activities of fishing, hunting, cleaning skins, stretching boots, and travelling by dog sled and kayak...from the base of the antlers to the tip of each branch".


title: Reindeer

text: The color of the fur varies considerably, both between individuals and depending on season and species. Northern populations, which usually are relatively small, are whiter, while southern populations, which typically are relatively large, are darker. This can be seen well in North America, where the northernmost subspecies, the Peary caribou, is the whitest and smallest subspecies of the continent, while the Selkirk Mountains caribou, is the darkest and nearly the largest, only exceeded in size by Osborn's caribou ("northern mountains" population DU7).


title: Reindeer

text: The coat has two layers of fur: a dense woolly undercoat and longer-haired overcoat consisting of hollow, air-filled hairs. Fur is the primary insulation factor that allows reindeer to regulate their core body temperature in relation to their environment, the thermogradient, even if the temperature rises to . In 1913, Dugmore noted how the woodland caribou swim so high out of the water, unlike any other mammal, because their hollow, "air-filled, quill-like hair" acts as a supporting "life jacket."


title: Reindeer

text: A darker belly color may be caused by two mutations of MC1R. They appear to be more common in domestic reindeer herds.


title: Reindeer

text: Blood moving into the legs is cooled by blood returning to the body in a countercurrent heat exchange (CCHE), a highly efficient means of minimizing heat loss through the skin's surface. In the CCHE mechanism, in cold weather, blood vessels are closely knotted and intertwined with arteries to the skin and appendages that carry warm blood with veins returning to the body that carry cold blood causing the warm arterial blood to exchange heat with the cold venous blood. In this way, their legs for example are kept cool, maintaining the core body temperature nearly higher with less heat lost to the environment. Heat is thus recycled instead of being dissipated. The "heart does not have to pump blood as rapidly in order to maintain a constant body core temperature and thus, metabolic rate." CCHE is present in animals like reindeer, fox and moose living in extreme conditions of cold or hot weather as a mechanism for retaining the heat in (or out of) the body. These are countercurrent exchange systems with the same fluid, usually blood, in a circuit, used for both directions of flow.


title: Reindeer

text: Reindeer have specialized counter-current vascular heat exchange in their nasal passages. Temperature gradient along the nasal mucosa is under physiological control. Incoming cold air is warmed by body heat before entering the lungs and water is condensed from the expired air and captured before the reindeer's breath is exhaled, then used to moisten dry incoming air and possibly be absorbed into the blood through the mucous membranes. Like moose, caribou have specialised noses featuring nasal turbinate bones that dramatically increase the surface area within the nostrils.


title: Reindeer

text: The reindeer has large feet with crescent-shaped cloven hooves for walking in snow or swamps. According to the Species at Risk Public Registry (SARA), woodland


title: Reindeer

text: Reindeer hooves adapt to the season: in the summer, when the tundra is soft and wet, the footpads become sponge-like and provide extra traction. In the winter, the pads shrink and tighten, exposing the rim of the hoof, which cuts into the ice and crusted snow to keep it from slipping. This also enables them to dig down (an activity known as "cratering") through the snow to their favourite food, a lichen known as reindeer lichen ("Cladonia rangiferina").


title: Reindeer

text: The females (or "cows" as they are often called) usually measure in length and weigh . The males (or "bulls" as they are often called) are typically larger (to an extent which varies between the different subspecies), measuring in length and usually weighing . Exceptionally large bulls have weighed as much as . Weight varies drastically between the seasons, with bulls losing as much as 40% of their pre-rut weight.


title: Reindeer

text: The reindeer from Svalbard are the smallest of all. They are also relatively short-legged and may have a shoulder height of as little as , thereby following Allen's rule.


title: Reindeer

text: The knees of many species and subspecies of reindeer are adapted to produce a clicking sound as they walk. The sounds originate in the tendons of the knees and may be audible from several hundred meters away. The frequency of the knee-clicks is one of a range of signals that establish relative positions on a dominance scale among reindeer. "Specifically, loud knee-clicking is discovered to be an honest signal of body size, providing an exceptional example of the potential for non-vocal acoustic communication in mammals." The clicking sound made by reindeer as they walk is caused by small tendons slipping over bone protuberances (sesamoid bones) in their feet. The sound is made when a reindeer is walking or running, occurring when the full weight of the foot is on the ground or just after it is relieved of the weight.


title: Reindeer

text: A study by researchers from University College London in 2011 revealed that reindeer can see light with wavelengths as short as 320 nm (i.e. in the ultraviolet range), considerably below the human threshold of 400 nm. It is thought that this ability helps them to survive in the Arctic, because many objects that blend into the landscape in light visible to humans, such as urine and fur, produce sharp contrasts in ultraviolet. It has been proposed that UV flashes on power lines are responsible for reindeer avoiding power lines because "...in darkness these animals see power lines not as dim, passive structures but, rather, as lines of flickering light stretching across the terrain."


title: Reindeer

text: The tapetum lucidum of Arctic reindeer eyes changes in color from gold in summer to blue in winter to improve their vision during times of continuous darkness, and perhaps enable them to better spot predators.


title: Reindeer

text: Reindeer have developed adaptations for optimal metabolic efficiency during warm months as well as for during cold months. The body composition of reindeer varies highly with the seasons. Of particular interest is the body composition and diet of breeding and non-breeding females between the seasons. Breeding females have more body mass than non-breeding females between the months of March and September with a difference of around more than non-breeding females. From November to December, non-breeding females have more body mass than breeding females, as non-breeding females are able to focus their energies towards storage during colder months rather than lactation and reproduction. Body masses of both breeding and non-breeding females peaks in September. During the months of March through April, breeding females have more fat mass than the non-breeding females with a difference of almost . After this, however, non-breeding females on average have a higher body fat mass than do breeding females.


title: Reindeer

text: The environmental variations play a large part in reindeer nutrition, as winter nutrition is crucial to adult and neonatal survival rates. Lichens are a staple during the winter months as they are a readily available food source, which reduces the reliance on stored body reserves. Lichens are a crucial part of the reindeer diet; however, they are less prevalent in the diet of pregnant reindeer compared to non-pregnant individuals. The amount of lichen in a diet is found more in non-pregnant adult diets than pregnant individuals due to the lack of nutritional value. Although lichens are high in carbohydrates, they are lacking in essential proteins that vascular plants provide. The amount of lichen in a diet decreases in latitude, which results in nutritional stress being higher in areas with low lichen abundance.


title: Reindeer

text: Reindeer mate in late September to early November and the gestation period is about 228–234 days. During the mating season, bulls battle for access to cows. Two bulls will lock each other's antlers together and try to push each other away. The most dominant bulls can collect as many as 15–20 cows to mate with. A bull will stop eating during this time and lose much of his body fat reserves.


title: Reindeer

text: To calve, "females travel to isolated, relatively predator-free areas such as islands in lakes, peatlands, lake-shores, or tundra." As females select the habitat for the birth of their calves, they are warier than males. Dugmore noted that, in their seasonal migrations, the herd follows a female for that reason. Newborns weigh on average . In May or June, the calves are born. After 45 days, the calves are able to graze and forage, but continue suckling until the following autumn when they become independent from their mothers.


title: Reindeer

text: Bulls live four years less than the cows, whose maximum longevity is about 17 years. Cows with a normal body size and who have had sufficient summer nutrition can begin breeding anytime between the ages of 1 to 3 years. When a cow has undergone nutritional stress, it is possible for her to not reproduce for the year. Dominant bulls, those with larger body size and antler racks, inseminate more than one cow a season.


title: Reindeer

text: Some populations of North American caribou, for example many herds in the barren-ground caribou subspecies and some woodland caribou in Ungava and Labrador, migrate the farthest of any terrestrial mammal, traveling up to a year, and covering . Other North American populations, the boreal woodland caribou for example, are largely sedentary. The European populations are known to have shorter migrations. Island herds, such as the insular Novaya Zemlya and Svalbard reindeer, make local movements. Migrating reindeer can be negatively affected by parasite loads. Severely infected individuals are weak and probably have shortened lifespans, but parasite levels vary between populations. Infections create an effect known as culling: infected migrating animals are less likely to complete the migration.


title: Reindeer

text: Normally travelling about a day while migrating, the caribou can run at speeds of . Young calves can already outrun an Olympic sprinter when only 1 day old. During the spring migration, smaller herds will group together to form larger herds of 50,000 to 500,000 animals, but during autumn migrations, the groups become smaller and the reindeer begin to mate. During winter, reindeer travel to forested areas to forage under the snow. By spring, groups leave their winter grounds to go to the calving grounds. A reindeer can swim easily and quickly, normally at about but, if necessary, at and migrating herds will not hesitate to swim across a large lake or broad river.


title: Reindeer

text: The barren-ground caribou form large herds and undertake lengthy seasonal migrations from winter feeding grounds in taiga to spring calving grounds and summer range in the tundra. The migrations of the Porcupine caribou herd of barren-ground caribou are among the longest of any mammal. Greenland caribou, found in western Greenland, are "mixed migrators" and many individuals do not migrate; those that do migrate < 60 km. Unlike the individual-tending mating system, aggregated rutting, synchronized calving and aggregated post-calving of barren-ground caribou, Greenland caribou have a harem-defense mating system and dispersed calving and they do not aggregate.


title: Reindeer

text: Although most wild tundra reindeer migrate between winter taiga habitats and summer range in tundra, some ecotypes or herds are more or less sedentary. Novaya Zemlya reindeer formerly wintered on the mainland and migrated across the ice to the islands for summer, but only a few now migrate. Forest reindeer, "R. fennicus", were formerly distributed in most of the coniferous forest zones south of the tree line, including some mountains, but are now spottily distributed within this zone.


title: Reindeer

text: Originally, the reindeer was found in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Greenland, Russia, Mongolia and northern China north of the 50th latitude. In North America, it was found in Canada, Alaska, and the northern contiguous United States from Washington to Maine. In the 19th century, it was still present in southern Idaho. Even in historical times, it probably occurred naturally in Ireland, and it is believed to have lived in Scotland until the 12th century, when the last reindeer were hunted in Orkney. During the Late Pleistocene Epoch, reindeer occurred further south, such as in Nevada, Tennessee, and Alabama in North America and as far south as Spain in Europe. Today, wild reindeer have disappeared from these areas, especially from the southern parts, where it vanished almost everywhere. Large populations of wild reindeer are still found in Norway, Finland, Siberia, Greenland, Alaska and Canada.


title: Reindeer

text: According to Grubb (2005), "Rangifer" is "circumboreal in the tundra and taiga" from "Svalbard, Norway, Finland, Russia, Alaska (USA) and Canada including most Arctic islands, and Greenland, south to northern Mongolia, China (Inner Mongolia), Sakhalin Island, and USA (northern Idaho and Great Lakes region)." Reindeer were introduced to, and are feral in, "Iceland, Kerguelen Islands, South Georgia Island, Pribilof Islands, St. Matthew Island"; a free-ranging semi-domesticated herd is also present in Scotland.


title: Reindeer

text: There is strong regional variation in "Rangifer" herd size. There are large population differences among individual herds and the size of individual herds has varied greatly since 1970. The largest of all herds (in Taimyr, Russia) has varied between 400,000 and 1,000,000; the second largest herd (at the George River in Canada) has varied between 28,000 and 385,000.


title: Reindeer

text: While "Rangifer" is a widespread and numerous genus in the northern Holarctic, being present in both tundra and taiga (boreal forest), by 2013, many herds had "unusually low numbers" and their winter ranges in particular were smaller than they used to be. Caribou and reindeer numbers have fluctuated historically, but many herds are in decline across their range. This global decline is linked to climate change for northern migratory herds and industrial disturbance of habitat for non-migratory herds. Barren-ground caribou are susceptible to the effects of climate change due to a mismatch in the phenological process, between the availability of food during the calving period.


title: Reindeer

text: In November 2016, it was reported that more than 81,000 reindeer in Russia had died as a result of climate change. Longer autumns, leading to increased amounts of freezing rain, created a few inches of ice over lichen, starving many reindeer.


title: Reindeer

text: Reindeer are ruminants, having a four-chambered stomach. They mainly eat lichens in winter, especially reindeer lichen ("Cladonia rangiferina"); they are the only large mammal able to metabolize lichen owing to specialised bacteria and protozoa in their gut. They are also the only animals (except for some gastropods) in which the enzyme lichenase, which breaks down lichenin to glucose, has been found. However, they also eat the leaves of willows and birches, as well as sedges and grasses.


title: Reindeer

text: Reindeer are osteophagous, they are known to gnaw and partly consume shed antlers as a dietary supplement and in some extreme cases will cannibalise each other's antlers before shedding. There is also some evidence to suggest that on occasion, especially in the spring when they are nutritionally stressed, they will feed on small rodents (such as lemmings), fish (such as the Arctic char), and bird eggs. Reindeer herded by the Chukchis have been known to devour mushrooms enthusiastically in late summer.


title: Reindeer

text: During the Arctic summer, when there is continuous daylight, reindeer change their sleeping pattern from one synchronised with the sun to an ultradian pattern, in which they sleep when they need to digest food.


title: Reindeer

text: A variety of predators prey heavily on reindeer, including overhunting by people in some areas, which contributes to the decline of populations.


title: Reindeer

text: Golden eagles prey on calves and are the most prolific hunter on the calving grounds. Wolverines will take newborn calves or birthing cows, as well as (less commonly) infirm adults.


title: Reindeer

text: Brown bears and polar bears prey on reindeer of all ages but, like wolverines, they are most likely to attack weaker animals, such as calves and sick reindeer, since healthy adult reindeer can usually outpace a bear. The grey wolf is the most effective natural predator of adult reindeer and sometimes takes large numbers, especially during the winter. Some wolf packs, as well as individual grizzly bears in Canada, may follow and live off of a particular reindeer herd year-round.


title: Reindeer

text: In 2020, scientists on Svalbard witnessed, and were able to film for the first time, a polar bear attack reindeer, driving one into the ocean, where the polar bear caught up with and killed it.<ref name="Chapman_10/22/2021"></ref> The same bear successfully repeated this hunting technique the next day. On Svalbard, reindeer remains account for 27.3% in polar bear scats, suggesting they "may be a significant part of the polar bear's diet in that area".<ref name="Stempniewicz_Kulaszewicz_Aars_10/12/2021"></ref>


title: Reindeer

text: Bloodsucking insects, such as mosquitoes, black flies, and especially the reindeer warble fly or reindeer botfly ("Hypoderma tarandi") and the reindeer nose botfly ("Cephenemyia trompe"), are a plague to reindeer during the summer and can cause enough stress to inhibit feeding and calving behaviors. An adult reindeer will lose perhaps about of blood to biting insects for every week it spends in the tundra. The population numbers of some of these predators is influenced by the migration of reindeer. Tormenting insects keep caribou on the move, searching for windy areas like hilltops and mountain ridges, rock reefs, lakeshore and forest openings, or snow patches that offer respite from the buzzing horde. Gathering in large herds is another strategy that caribou use to block insects.


title: Reindeer

text: Reindeer are good swimmers, and in one case, the entire body of a reindeer was found in the stomach of a Greenland shark ("Somniosus microcephalus"), a species found in the far northern Atlantic.


title: Reindeer

text: White-tailed deer ("Odocoileus virginianus") commonly carry meningeal worm or brainworm ("Parelaphostrongylus tenuis"), a nematode parasite that causes reindeer, moose ("Alces alces"), elk ("Cervus canadensis"), and mule deer ("Odocoileus hemionus") to develop fatal neurological symptoms which include a loss of fear of humans. White-tailed deer that carry this worm are partly immune to it.


title: Reindeer

text: Changes in climate and habitat beginning in the 20th century have expanded range overlap between white-tailed deer and caribou, increasing the frequency of infection within the reindeer population. This increase in infection is a concern for wildlife managers. Human activities, such as "clear-cutting forestry practices, forest fires, and the clearing for agriculture, roadways, railways, and power lines," favor the conversion of habitats into the preferred habitat of the white-tailed deer – "open forest interspersed with meadows, clearings, grasslands, and riparian flatlands." Towards the end of the Soviet Union, there was increasingly open admission from the Soviet government that reindeer numbers were being negatively affected by human activity, and that this must be remediated especially by supporting reindeer breeding by native herders.


title: Reindeer

text: While overall widespread and numerous, some reindeer species and subspecies are rare and three subspecies have already become extinct. As of 2015, the IUCN has classified the reindeer as Vulnerable due to an observed population decline of 40% over the last +25 years. According to IUCN, "Rangifer tarandus" as a species is not endangered because of its overall large population and its widespread range.


title: Reindeer

text: In North America, Dawson's caribou, and East Greenland caribou both went extinct in the early 20th Century. Peary caribou is endangered, woodland caribou is designated as threatened and some individual populations are endangered. While the barren-ground caribou is not designated as threatened, many individual herds — including some of the largest — are declining and there is much concern at the local level. Grant's caribou, a small, pale subspecies endemic to the western end of the Alaska Peninsula and the adjacent islands, has not been assessed as to its conservation status.


title: Reindeer

text: The status of the Dolphin and Union "herd" was upgraded to Endangered in 2017. In NWT, Dolphin and Union caribou are listed as Special Concern under the NWT Species at Risk (NWT) Act (2013).


title: Reindeer

text: The Selkirk Mountains caribou ("southern mountains" population DU9) and Rocky Mountain caribou ("Central mountains" population DU8) are endangered in Canada in regions such as southeastern British Columbia at the Canada–United States border, along the Columbia and Kootenay Rivers and around Kootenay Lake. Rocky Mountain caribou are extirpated from Banff National Park, but a small population remains in Jasper National Park and in mountain ranges to the northwest into British Columbia. The mountain caribou is now considered extirpated in the contiguous United States, including Idaho and Washington. Osborn's caribou is classified as Threatened.


title: Reindeer

text: In Eurasia, the Sakhalin Island reindeer is extinct (replaced by domestic reindeer) and reindeer on most of the Novaya Zemlya islands have been replaced by domestic reindeer, although some wild reindeer persist on the northern islands. Many Siberian tundra caribou herds have declined, some dangerously, but the Taymir herd remains strong and in total about 940,000 wild Siberian reindeer were estimated in 2010.


title: Reindeer

text: There is strong regional variation in "Rangifer" herd size. By 2013, many caribou herds in North America had "unusually low numbers" and their winter ranges in particular were smaller than they used to be. Caribou numbers have fluctuated historically, but many herds are in decline across their range. There are many factors contributing to the decline in numbers.


title: Reindeer

text: Ongoing human development of their habitat has caused populations of woodland caribou to disappear from their original southern range. In particular, caribou were extirpated in many areas of eastern North America in the beginning of the 20th century. Woodland caribou were designated as threatened in 2002. Environment Canada reported in 2011 that there were approximately 34,000 boreal woodland caribou in 51 ranges remaining in Canada (Environment Canada, 2011b). Professor Marco Musiani of the University of Calgary said in a statement that "The woodland caribou is already an endangered subspecies in southern Canada and the United States...[The] warming of the planet means the disappearance of their critical habitat in these regions. Caribou need undisturbed lichen-rich environments and these types of habitats are disappearing."


title: Reindeer

text: 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 Canada reported in 2011 that there were approximately 34 000 boreal woodland caribou in 51 ranges remaining in Canada (Environment Canada, 2011b). "According to Geist, the "woodland caribou is highly endangered throughout its distribution right into Ontario."


title: Reindeer

text: In 2002 the Atlantic-Gaspésie population of the woodland caribou was designated as endangered by COSEWIC. The small isolated population of 200 animals was at risk from predation and habitat loss.


title: Reindeer

text: In 1991, COSEWIC assigned "endangered status" to the Banks Island and High Arctic populations of Peary caribou. The Low Arctic population of Peary caribou was designated as threatened. In 2004, all three were designated as "endangered." In 2015, COSEWIC returned the status to threatened.


title: Reindeer

text: Arctic peoples have depended on caribou for food, clothing, and shelter. European prehistoric cave paintings represent both tundra and forest forms, the latter either the Finnish forest reindeer or the narrow-nosed reindeer, an eastern Siberia forest form. Canadian examples include the Caribou Inuit, the inland-dwelling Inuit of the Kivalliq Region in northern Canada, the Caribou Clan in the Yukon, the Iñupiat, the Inuvialuit, the Hän, the Northern Tutchone, and the Gwichʼin (who followed the Porcupine caribou for millennia). Hunting wild reindeer and herding of semi-domesticated reindeer are important to several Arctic and subarctic peoples such as the Duhalar for meat, , antlers, , and transportation.


title: Reindeer

text: Reindeer have been domesticated at least two and probably three times, in each case from wild Eurasian tundra reindeer after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Recognizably different domestic reindeer breeds include those of the Evenk, Even, and Chukotka-Khargin people of Yakutia and the Nenets breed from the Nenets Autonomous district and Murmansk region; the Tuvans, Todzhans, Tofa (Tofalars, in the Irkutsk Region), the Soyots (the Republic of Buryatia), and the Dukha (also known as Tsaatan, the Khubsugul) in the Province of Mongolia. The Sámi people (Sápmi) have also depended on reindeer herding and fishing for centuries. In Sápmi, reindeer are used to pull a pulk, a Nordic sled.


title: Reindeer

text: In traditional United States Christmas legend, Santa Claus's reindeer pull a sleigh through the night sky to help Santa Claus deliver gifts to good children on Christmas Eve.


title: Reindeer

text: The reindeer has an important economic role for all circumpolar peoples, including the Sámi, the Swedes, the Norwegians, the Finns and the Northwestern Russians in Europe, the Nenets, the Khanty, the Evenks, the Yukaghirs, the Chukchi and the Koryaks in Asia and the Inuit in North America. It is believed that domestication started between the Bronze and Iron Ages. Siberian reindeer owners also use the reindeer to ride on (Siberian reindeer are larger than their Scandinavian relatives). For breeders, a single owner may own hundreds or even thousands of animals. The numbers of Russian and Scandinavian reindeer herders have been drastically reduced since 1990. The sale of fur and meat is an important source of income. Reindeer were introduced into Alaska near the end of the 19th century; they interbred with the native caribou subspecies there. Reindeer herders on the Seward Peninsula have experienced significant losses to their herds from animals (such as wolves) following the wild caribou during their migrations.


title: Reindeer

text: Reindeer meat is popular in the Scandinavian countries. Reindeer meatballs are sold canned. Sautéed reindeer is the best-known dish in Sápmi. In Alaska and Finland, reindeer sausage is sold in supermarkets and grocery stores. Reindeer meat is very tender and lean. It can be prepared fresh, but also dried, salted and hot- and cold-smoked. In addition to meat, almost all of the internal organs of reindeer can be eaten, some being traditional dishes. Furthermore, "Lapin Poron liha", fresh reindeer meat completely produced and packed in Finnish Sápmi, is protected in Europe with PDO classification.


title: Reindeer

text: Reindeer antlers are powdered and sold as an aphrodisiac, or as a nutritional or medicinal supplement, to Asian markets.


title: Reindeer

text: The blood of the caribou was supposedly mixed with alcohol as drink by hunters and loggers in colonial Quebec to counter the cold. This drink is now enjoyed without the blood as a wine and whiskey drink known as "Caribou".


title: Reindeer

text: Caribou are still hunted in Greenland and in North America. In the traditional lifestyles of some of Canada's Inuit peoples and northern First Nations peoples, Alaska Natives, and the Kalaallit of Greenland, caribou is an important source of food, clothing, shelter and tools.


title: Reindeer

text: The Caribou Inuit are inland-dwelling Inuit in present-day Nunavut's Kivalliq Region (formerly the Keewatin Region, Northwest Territories), Canada. They subsisted on caribou year-round, eating dried caribou meat in the winter. The Ahiarmiut are Caribou Inuit that followed the Qamanirjuaq barren-ground caribou herd.


title: Reindeer

text: Elder Chief of Koyukuk and chair for the Western Arctic Caribou Herd Working Group Benedict Jones, or Kʼughtoʼoodenoolʼoʼ, represents the Middle Yukon River, Alaska. His grandmother was a member of the Caribou Clan, who travelled with the caribou as a means to survive. In 1939, they were living their traditional lifestyle at one of their hunting camps in Koyukuk near the location of what is now the Koyukuk National Wildlife Refuge. His grandmother made a pair of new mukluks in one day. Kʼughtoʼoodenoolʼoʼ recounted a story told by an elder, who "worked on the steamboats during the gold rush days out on the Yukon." In late August, the caribou migrated from the Alaska Range up north to Huslia, Koyukuk and the Tanana area. One year when the steamboat was unable to continue, they ran into a caribou herd estimated to number 1 million animals, migrating across the Yukon. "They tied up for seven days waiting for the caribou to cross. They ran out of wood for the steamboats, and had to go back down 40 miles to the wood pile to pick up some more wood. On the tenth day, they came back and they said there was still caribou going across the river night and day."


title: Reindeer

text: The Gwichʼin, an indigenous people of northwestern Canada and northeastern Alaska, have been dependent on the international migratory Porcupine caribou herd for millennia. To them caribou — "vadzaih" — is the cultural symbol and a keystone subsistence species of the Gwich'in, just as the buffalo is to the Plains Indians. Innovative language revitalisation projects are underway to document the language and to enhance the writing and translation skills of younger Gwich'in speakers. In one project, lead research associate and fluent speaker Gwich'in elder Kenneth Frank works with linguists who include young Gwich'in speakers affiliated with the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks to document traditional knowledge of caribou anatomy. The main goal of the research was to "elicit not only what the Gwich'in know about caribou anatomy, but how they see caribou and what they say and believe about caribou that defines themselves, their dietary and nutritional needs, and their subsistence way of life." Elders have identified at least 150 descriptive Gwich'in names for all of the bones, organs and tissues. Associated with the caribou's anatomy are not just descriptive Gwich'in names for all of the body parts, including bones, organs, and tissues, but also "an encyclopedia of stories, songs, games, toys, ceremonies, traditional tools, skin clothing, personal names and surnames, and a highly developed ethnic cuisine." In the 1980s, Gwich'in Traditional Management Practices were established to protect the Porcupine caribou, upon which the Gwich'in depend. They "codified traditional principles of caribou management into tribal law" which include "limits on the harvest of caribou and procedures to be followed in processing and transporting caribou meat" and limits on the number of caribou to be taken per hunting trip.


title: Reindeer

text: Reindeer herding has been vital for the subsistence of several Eurasian nomadic indigenous peoples living in the circumpolar Arctic zone such as the Sámi, Nenets, and Komi. Reindeer are used to provide renewable sources and reliable transportation. In Mongolia, the Dukha are known as the reindeer people. They are credited as one of the world's earliest domesticators. The Dukha diet consists mainly of reindeer dairy products.


title: Reindeer

text: Reindeer husbandry is common in Fennoscandia (Norway, Sweden, Finland) and the Russian North. In Norway and Sweden, reindeer ownership is restricted to the Sámi people. In some human groups such as the Eveny, wild reindeer and domesticated reindeer are treated as different kinds of beings.


title: Reindeer

text: The reindeer is the only successfully semi-domesticated deer on a large scale in the world. Reindeer in northern Fennoscandia (northern Norway, Sweden and Finland) as well in the Kola Peninsula and Yakutia in Russia, are mostly semi-domesticated reindeer, ear-marked by their owners. Some reindeer in the area are truly domesticated, mostly used as draught animals (nowadays commonly for tourist entertainment and races, traditionally important for the nomadic Sámi). Domesticated reindeer have also been used for milk, e.g., in Norway.


title: Reindeer

text: There are only two genetically pure populations of wild reindeer in Northern Europe: wild mountain reindeer ("R. t. tarandus") that live in central Norway, with a population in 2007 of between 6,000 and 8,400 animals; and wild Finnish forest reindeer ("R. t. fennicus") that live in central and eastern Finland and in Russian Karelia, with a population of about 4,350, plus 1,500 in Arkhangelsk Oblast and 2,500 in Komi. East of Arkhangelsk, both wild tundra reindeer, "R. t. sibiricus" (some herds are very large) and domestic reindeer occur with almost no interbreeding by wild reindeer into domestic clades and none the other way (Kharzinova et al. 2018; Rozhkov [Рожkов] et al. 2020).


title: Reindeer

text: DNA analysis indicates that reindeer were independently domesticated at least twice: in Fennoscandia and Western Russia (and possibly also Eastern Russia). Reindeer have been herded for centuries by several Arctic and subarctic peoples, including the Sámi, the Nenets and the Yakuts. They are raised for their meat, hides and antlers and, to a lesser extent, for milk and transportation. Reindeer are not considered fully domesticated, as they generally roam free on pasture grounds. In traditional nomadic herding, reindeer herders migrate with their herds between coastal and inland areas according to an annual migration route and herds are keenly tended. However, reindeer were not bred in captivity, though they were tamed for milking as well as for use as draught animals or beasts of burden. Millais (1915), for example, show a photograph (Plate LXXX) of an "Okhotsk Reindeer" saddled for riding (the rider standing behind it) beside an officer astride a steppe pony that is only slightly larger. Domesticated reindeer are shorter-legged and heavier than their wild counterparts. In Scandinavia, management of reindeer herds is primarily conducted through "siida", a traditional Sámi form of cooperative association.


title: Reindeer

text: The use of reindeer for transportation is common among the nomadic peoples of northern Russia (but not anymore in Scandinavia). Although a sled drawn by 20 reindeer will cover no more than a day (compared to on foot, by a dog sled loaded with cargo and by a dog sled without cargo), it has the advantage that the reindeer will discover their own food, while a pack of 5–7 sled dogs requires of fresh fish a day.


title: Reindeer

text: The use of reindeer as semi-domesticated livestock in Alaska was introduced in the late 19th century by the United States Revenue Cutter Service, with assistance from Sheldon Jackson, as a means of providing a livelihood for Alaska Natives. Reindeer were imported first from Siberia and later also from Norway. A regular mail run in Wales, Alaska, used a sleigh drawn by reindeer. In Alaska, reindeer herders use satellite telemetry to track their herds, using online maps and databases to chart the herd's progress.


title: Reindeer

text: Domesticated reindeer are mostly found in northern Fennoscandia and Russia, with a herd of approximately 150–170 reindeer living around the Cairngorms region in Scotland. The last remaining wild tundra reindeer in Europe are found in portions of southern Norway. The International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry (ICR), a circumpolar organisation, was established in 2005 by the Norwegian government. ICR represents over 20 indigenous reindeer peoples and about 100,000 reindeer herders in nine different national states. In Finland, there are about 6,000 reindeer herders, most of whom keep small herds of less than 50 reindeer to raise additional income. With 185,000 reindeer (), the industry produces of reindeer meat and generates 35 million euros annually. 70% of the meat is sold to slaughterhouses. Reindeer herders are eligible for national and EU agricultural subsidies, which constituted 15% of their income. Reindeer herding is of central importance for the local economies of small communities in sparsely populated rural Sápmi.


title: Reindeer

text: Currently, many reindeer herders are heavily dependent on diesel fuel to provide for electric generators and snowmobile transportation, although solar photovoltaic systems can be used to reduce diesel dependency.


title: Reindeer

text: Both Aristotle and Theophrastus have short accounts – probably based on the same source – of an ox-sized deer species, named "tarandos", living in the land of the Bodines in Scythia, which was able to change the colour of its fur to obtain camouflage. The latter is probably a misunderstanding of the seasonal change in reindeer fur colour. The descriptions have been interpreted as being of reindeer living in the southern Ural Mountains in c. 350 BC.


title: Reindeer

text: A deer-like animal described by Julius Caesar in his "Commentarii de Bello Gallico" (chapter 6.26) from the Hercynian Forest in the year 53 BC is most certainly to be interpreted as a reindeer:


title: Reindeer

text: According to Olaus Magnus's "Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus" – printed in Rome in the year 1555 – Gustav I of Sweden sent 10 reindeer to Albert, Duke of Prussia, in the year 1533. It may be these animals that Conrad Gessner had seen or heard of.


title: Reindeer

text: During World War II, the Soviet Army used reindeer as pack animals to transport food, ammunition and post from Murmansk to the Karelian front and bring wounded soldiers, pilots and equipment back to the base. About 6,000 reindeer and more than 1,000 reindeer herders were part of the operation. Most herders were Nenets, who were mobilised from the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, but reindeer herders from the Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and Komi regions also participated.


title: Reindeer

text: Around the world, public interest in reindeer peaks during the Christmas season. According to folklore, Santa Claus's sleigh is pulled by flying reindeer. These reindeer were first named in the 1823 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas".


title: Reindeer

text: Inuit artists from the barren lands, incorporate depictions of caribou — and items made from caribou antlers and skin — in carvings, drawings, prints and sculpture.


title: Reindeer

text: Contemporary Canadian artist Brian Jungen, of Dane-zaa First Nations ancestry, commissioned an installation entitled "The ghosts on top of my head" (2010–11) in Banff, Alberta, which depicts the antlers of caribou, elk and moose.


title: Reindeer

text: Tomson Highway, CM is a Canadian and Cree playwright, novelist, and children's author, who was born in a remote area north of Brochet, Manitoba. His father, Joe Highway, was a caribou hunter. His 2001 children's book entitled "Caribou Song/atíhko níkamon" was selected as one of the "Top 10 Children's Books" by the Canadian newspaper "The Globe and Mail." The young protagonists of "Caribou Song", like Tomson himself, followed the caribou herd with their families.


title: Reindeer

text: Several Norwegian municipalities have one or more reindeer depicted in their coats-of-arms: Eidfjord, Porsanger, Rendalen, Tromsø, Vadsø and Vågå. The historic province of Västerbotten in Sweden has a reindeer in its coat of arms. The present Västerbotten County has very different borders and uses the reindeer combined with other symbols in its coat-of-arms. The city of Piteå also has a reindeer. The logo for Umeå University features three reindeer.


title: Reindeer

text: The Canadian 25-cent coin or "quarter" features a depiction of a caribou on one face. The caribou is the official provincial animal of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, and appears on the coat of arms of Nunavut. A caribou statue was erected at the centre of the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, marking the spot in France where hundreds of soldiers from Newfoundland were killed and wounded in World War I. There is a replica in Bowring Park in St. John's, Newfoundland's capital city.


title: Reindeer

text: Two municipalities in Finland have reindeer motifs in their coats-of-arms: Kuusamo has a running reindeer and Inari has a fish with reindeer antlers.


title: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

text: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is a 2013 action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the sixth major installment in the "Assassin's Creed" series. Its historical timeframe precedes that of "Assassin's Creed III" (2012), but its modern-day sequences succeed "III"s own. "Black Flag" was originally released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U in October 2013 and a month later for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows. It was later re-released on the Nintendo Switch as part of "The Rebel Collection" alongside "Assassin's Creed Rogue" in December 2019. The game was released for Google Stadia in September 2021.


title: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

text: The plot is set in a fictional history of real-world events and follows the millennia-old struggle between the Assassins, who fight to preserve peace and free will, and the Templars, who desire peace through control. The framing story is set in the 21st century and depicts the player as an employee of Abstergo Industries (a company used as a front by the modern-day Templars), who is manipulated into uncovering secrets related to the Assassin-Templar conflict and the precursor race known as the First Civilization. The main story is set in the West Indies during the Golden Age of Piracy from 1715 to 1722, and follows notorious Welsh pirate Edward Kenway, grandfather of "Assassin's Creed III" protagonist and father of antagonist Haytham Kenway as he searches for fortune and a mythical location called the Observatory, which is sought by both the Assassins and the Templars. A major plot element concerns the attempted establishment of an independent Pirate republic in the Caribbean.


title: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

text: Unlike previous games, gameplay elements focus more on the ship-based exploration of the seamless open world map, while also retaining the series' third-person land-based exploration, melee combat, and stealth system. Multiplayer also returns, albeit with only land-based modes and settings. The game's setting spans the West Indies with the three main cities of Havana, Nassau, and Kingston, along with numerous islands, sunken ships, and forts. Players have the option to harpoon large sea animals and hunt land animals. For the first time in the series, naval exploration is a major part of an "Assassin's Creed" game, where Edward captains the "Jackdaw", a brig he captures from a Spanish fleet in an early game mission. A number of downloadable content (DLC) packs were released to support "Black Flag", including "Assassin's Creed Freedom Cry", a story expansion that was later made available as a standalone game in 2014. Set over a decade after "Black Flag"'s main campaign, "Freedom Cry" follows Adéwalé, Edward's former quartermaster who became an Assassin.


title: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

text: "Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag" received critical acclaim and was one of the best-selling games of 2013, with over 15million copies sold . Critics praised the open world gameplay, improved naval combat, side-quests, graphics, narrative, characters, and pirate theme. However, the modern-day story and combat received a slightly more mixed response, while criticism fell on aspects of the historical story missions which were considered repetitive. The game received several awards and nominations, including winning the Spike VGX 2013 award for Best Action Adventure Game. It was followed by "Assassin's Creed Rogue" and "Assassin's Creed Unity" in November 2014.


title: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

text: "Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag" is an action-adventure, stealth game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective. The game features three main cities: Havana, Kingston, and Nassau, which reside under Spanish, British, and pirate influence, respectively. In addition, locations like Port-au-Prince and Greater Inagua are used as main story points. It also features 50 other individual locations to explore, including atolls, sea forts, Mayan ruins, sugar plantations, and underwater shipwrecks, with a 60/40 balance between land and naval exploration. It has a more open world feel, with missions similar to those found in "Assassin's Creed", as well as fewer restrictions for the player. The world opens up sooner in the game, as opposed to "Assassin's Creed III", which had very scripted missions and did not give players freedom to explore until the game was well into its first act. The player will encounter jungles, forts, ruins, and small villages and the world is built to allow players much more freedom, such as allowing players to engage, board, and capture passing ships and swimming to nearby beaches in a seamless fashion. In addition, the hunting system has been retained from "Assassin's Creed III", allowing the player to hunt on land, and fish in the water, with resources gathered used to upgrade equipment using the crafting system.


title: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

text: A new aspect in the game is the "Jackdaw", the ship that the player captains. The "Jackdaw" is upgradeable throughout the game, and is easily accessible to the player when needed. In addition, a new underwater component has been added. The player has access to a spyglass, allowing the examination of distant ships, along with their cargo and strength. It can also help determine if an island still has animals to hunt, treasures to find, high points to reach for synchronization or additional side-quests to complete, such as assassinations and naval contracts. An updated form of the recruit system introduced in "" has returned, allowing Edward to recruit crew members. While Kenway's crew will remain loyal to him, they can be promoted to captain acquired ships, and are needed to assist in boarding enemy vessels. They cannot assist in combat or perform long-range assassinations, as in previous games; Ubisoft removed this aspect of the brotherhood system, believing it allowed players to bypass tense and challenging scenarios too easily.


title: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

text: In the present, at the offices of Abstergo Entertainment—a subsidiary of Abstergo Industries—in Montreal, Quebec, players control an unnamed protagonist from a first-person perspective and engage in modern-day pirating through the exploration of Abstergo's offices, eavesdropping, and hacking, all without combat. "Hacking" minigames, similar to the cluster and glyph puzzles from the previous games, are also present, and completing them uncovers various secrets about Abstergo.


title: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

text: The main character of the game is Edward Kenway (voiced by Matt Ryan), a Welsh privateer-turned-pirate and eventual member of the Brotherhood of Assassins. Edward is the father of the future Colonial Templars Grand Master Haytham Kenway, and grandfather of the Assassin Ratonhnhaké:ton / Connor, the two playable characters of "Assassin's Creed III". During the game, Edward meets and interacts with several real-life historical figures, including notorious pirates Edward "Blackbeard" Thatch (Mark Bonnar), Benjamin Hornigold (Ed Stoppard), Mary Read (Olivia Morgan), Stede Bonnet (James Bachman), Anne Bonny (Sarah Greene), Calico Jack (O-T Fagbenle), and Charles Vane (Ralph Ineson).