Pere David Deer

The French naturalist, Father Armand David, brought these unusual deer to the attention of the west. He found the deer in the gardens of the summer palace at Peking, China in 1865.
 

• Today this remarkable rare deer is being bred in only a few private parks a and zoological gardens. Naturalists believe that the animals originally lived in the swampy reed covered plains that once existed over much of China.
   
• In China, Pere David deer are known as milu or Ssupu-hsiang. This translates to the four unlikes, the Chinese thought the animals had the tail of a donkey, the antlers of a deer, the neck of a camel and the hoof of an ox.
  
  

  

• What do you think they look like?
   
• The boggy rhododendron covered areas in the Park have suited these deer particularly well and since they were introduced they have thrived.