Arctic reindeer
| Arctic reindeer | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Family: | Cervidae |
| Subfamily: | Capreolinae |
| Genus: | Rangifer |
| Species: | |
| Subspecies: | †R. t. eogroenlandicus
|
| Trinomial name | |
| †Rangifer tarandus eogroenlandicus | |
The Arctic reindeer (Rangifer tarandus eogroenlandicus), properly known as the East Greenland caribou, was a subspecies of the reindeer (or the caribou in North America) that once lived in eastern Greenland. It has been extinct since 1900.
Archaeologists have found bones of small caribou the size of Peary caribou, Rangifer arcticus pearyi, throughout Greenland in the Illinoian-Wisconsin interglacial and through the LGM and early Holocene (Meldgaard 1986).[3] Degerbøl (1957)[4] described the East Greenland caribou (reindeer), R. t. eogroenlandicus, a small caribou that became extinct about 1900, from a relict enclave in north-eastern Greenland (see Figure 2 in Harding, 2022).[5] However, Anderson (1946)[6] thought that the small caribou that were occasionally found in northwest Greenland (and by implication, throughout Greenland in prehistoric times) were Peary caribou. Bennike (1988),[7] comparing bones and noting that Peary caribou have been documented crossing Nares Strait to Greenland, doubted that pearyi and eogroenlandicus were subspecifically distinct. That Peary caribou shared certain mtDNA haplotypes and morphological similarities with it (Kvie et al. 2016)[8] casts further doubt on the validity of R. t. eogroenlandicus. Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (traditional or community knowledge) records that Peary caribou do, occasionally, cross to Greenland.[9]
The (West) Greenland caribou or reindeer (R. groenlandicus after a recent revision [5]) is larger and darker and not referable to either R. a. pearyi or R. t. eogroenlandicus.
Canadian Arctic Archipelago
Caribou on most of the High Arctic islands are Peary caribou, R. arcticus pearyi. (see Reindeer).
Svalbard, Norway
Reindeer on the island group of Svalbard have recently been classified as a full species, R. platyrhinchus. See Reindeer.
Other reindeer and caribou populations
Many other caribou (North America) and reindeer (Eurasia) live in Arctic regions, that is, north of the Arctic Circle at 66° North (or in tundra, under a botanical definition of Arctic). See Reindeer.
References
- ^ Gunn, A. (2016). "Rangifer tarandus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2016: e.T29742A22167140. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-1.RLTS.T29742A22167140.en. Retrieved 20 November 2021.
- ^ Hatting, Tove (1978). "Magnus Anton Degerbøl: 1895-1977". Journal of Mammalogy. 59 (4): 894–897. doi:10.2307/1380173. JSTOR 1380173.
- ^ Meldgaard M (1986) The Greenland caribou - zoogeography, taxonomy and population dynamics. Vol. 20,Kommissionen for Videnskabelige Undersagelser i Grønland, Meddelelser om Grøinland, Bioscience, Univ. Copenhagen, zoologisk museum, Denmark, 88 pp
- ^ Degerbøl M (1957) The extinct reindeer of East-Greenland: Rangifer tarandus eogroenlandicus, subsp. nov.: compared with reindeer from other Arctic regions. Acta Arctica 10: 1-66.
- ^ a b Harding LE (2022) Available names for Rangifer (Mammalia, Artiodactyla, Cervidae) species and subspecies. ZooKeys 1119: 117-151. doi:10.3897/zookeys.1119.80233.
- ^ Anderson RM (1946) Catalogue of Canadian Recent mammals. National Museum of Canada Bulletin No. 102, Biological Series 31, Ottawa, Ontario, 238 pp.
- ^ Bennike O (1988) Review: The Greenland caribou-zoogeography, taxonomy and population dynamics, by Morten Meldgaard. Arctic 41: 146-147. doi:doi:10.14430/arctic1984.
- ^ Kvie KS, Heggenes J, Anderson DG, Kholodova MV, Sipko T, Mizin I, Røed KH (2016) Colonizing the high arctic: mitochondrial DNA reveals common origin of Eurasian archipelagic reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). PloS one 11: e0165237. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0165237.
- ^ Taylor ADM (2005) Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit about population changes and ecology of Peary caribou and muskoxen on the High Arctic islands of Nunavut. MA Thesis, Kingston, Ontario: Queen’s University