Your top 5 favorite Deer

Austin the Sengi

Austin the Sengi

Well-Known Member
5+ year member
With my thread Your top 5 favorite Antelopes being a bigger hit than previously intended, naturally, a sequel to that thread was bound to become a reality; albeit with deer being the main focus this time around.

Much like its predecessor, this is a simple question as to what your top five species of deer are; and to start things off, here’s my answer for reference:

  1. Southern Pudu
  2. Tufted Deer
  3. Chital / Axis Deer
  4. Sambar Deer
  5. Elk / Wapiti (Cervus canadensis)

Honorable Mention/s:*
  1. Eld’s / Brow-Antlered Deer
  2. Père David’s Deer
  3. Mule Deer
  4. Reeve’s Muntjac
  5. Hairy-Fronted / Black Muntjac
(*means that this will be subjected to change)
 
I like these fun threads:

1. Elk (Cervus canadensis)
2. Axis Deer
3. Reindeer/Caribou
4. Sika Deer
5. Moose

Honorable Mention:
1. Fallow Deer
2. Mule Deer
3. Père David’s Deer
4. Red Deer
5. White Tailed Deer
 
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Restricting my list to species that I've seen, my top five deer species are:

  1. Prince Alfred's deer (Philippine spotted deer)
  2. white-lipped deer
  3. South American marsh deer
  4. brow-antlered deer
  5. moose
Honourable mentions:-

  1. Chinese water deer
  2. tufted deer
  3. southern pudu
  4. Pere David's deer
  5. Persian fallow deer
  6. barasingha
 
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Here’s my list of top five deer species
1. White tailed deer
2. Black tailed deer
3. Reindeer/caribou
4. Elk/wapiti
5. Moose
 
I am sticking to invasively or naturally native (UK).

Great deer to select from and while I enjoy a Pere David, White Lipped deer or indeed a Moose, nothing for me is as nice as finding one of our deer in the wild or seeing a large herd of Fallows or Reds (or Sikas, they just didn't make my list) in a large deer park.

1. Red
2. Fallow
3. Chinese Water Deer
4. Roe
5. Muntjac
 
Inspired choices for a list @Lafone, the diversity of wild deer in the UK specifically (whether intentional or not) has been a fascination of mine since I first joined ZooChat.

Furthermore, based on your personal experiences, what are some of the best places to see the majority of these deer in the same area/s?
 
Here's mine, though I'm not a big fan of cervids
  1. Southern Pudu (Pudu pudu)
  2. Water Deer (Hydropotes inermis)
  3. Northern Red Muntjac (Muntiacus vaginalis)
  4. Sika Deer (Cervus nippon)
  5. Calamanian Deer (Axis calamianensis)

Honorable Mention/s:
  1. Pere David's Deer (Elaphurus davidianus)
  2. Tufted Deer (Elaphodus cephalophus)
  3. Reeves's Muntjac (Muntiacus reevesi)
  4. Persian Fallow Deer (Dama mesopotamica)
  5. Visayan Spotted Deer (Rusa alfredi)
 
Lafone said:
I am sticking to invasively or naturally native (UK).

Great deer to select from and while I enjoy a Pere David, White Lipped deer or indeed a Moose, nothing for me is as nice as finding one of our deer in the wild or seeing a large herd of Fallows or Reds (or Sikas, they just didn't make my list) in a large deer park.

1. Red
2. Fallow
3. Chinese Water Deer
4. Roe
5. Muntjac
Click to expand...
You have chosen exactly the deer that I was going to choose, I don't have to now LOL
 
Austin the Sengi said:
Inspired choices for a list @Lafone, the diversity of wild deer in the UK specifically (whether intentional or not) has been a fascination of mine since I first joined ZooChat.

Furthermore, based on your personal experiences, what are some of the best places to see the majority of these deer in the same area/s?
Click to expand...

Some of our big deer parks are great places for Fallows and Reds (and Sikas where they have them). I enjoy Bradgate park near Leicester, Burghley House, Woburn deer park (when it's open) and the always classic Richmond. Houghton Hall further to the East of Norfolk has lovely white Fallows. Wild deer live around the edges of most of those.

For the wild deer I mainly see CWD in very big numbers (30-40 at a time in the dusk in summer in a couple of fields, amazing) in an estate near Woburn (where of course the invasive population originated) along with Muntjac.

I see Muntjac in most of the RSPB / WWT sites I visit in the East of England - Lakenheath Fen has some well habituated to people, Welney has them on the Lady fen walk along with Roe and CWD and sometimes on the wetland side too. And a few running up the road on the way! Roe I see a lot of around the Oxford area, there's a few sites for birding etc where Roe are in good numbers and if you leave Cotswold Wildlife Park at closing in the summer heading to Oxford you can stop in a layby on the way back just out of Burford and usually catch the Roe grazing in the dwindling light.
 
This is hard because there are so many great deer! My list is biased toward those that I've seen in captivity or that I know are in captivity because I know them better, but there are tons of small muntjacs, brocket deer, and musk deer that aren't on my list simply because I'm not familiar with them: Not all of these are found in captivity, but right now, my list is:

1) Tufted Deer (Elaphodus cephalophus)

2) Calamian Deer (Axis calamianensis)

3) Marsh Deer (Blastocerus dichotomus)

4) Brow-antlered (Eld's) Deer (Rucervus eldii)

5) Barasighna (Rucervus duvaucelii)

Honorable Mention:

6) Southern and Northern Huemul (Hippocamelus sp.) (I can't choose between the two)

7) Bawean Deer (Axis kuhlii)

8) Pampas Deer (Ozotoceros bezoarticus)

9) Roe Deer (Capreolis sp) (again, I can't choose which one)

10) every species of Brocket Deer (Mazama sp.)

I love the White-tailed Deer too, but it's just so darn common in my area that I can't get excited about them.
 
As you didn't specify whether the deer species needs to be alive...:D

- Cervalces latifrons
- Megaloceros giganteus
- Sinomegaceros pachyosteus
- Eucladoceros dicranios
- Candiacervus ropalophorus

As for extant species:
- Water deer
- Alaskan Moose
- Marsh deer
- Thorold's deer
- Giant Muntjac
 
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Oooo great topic! My second favorite group of ungulates only to Antelopes! Here goes:

1. Northern Pudu (the deer species I want to see the most!)
2. Southern Huemul (the species I wanted to see 2nd most until I just did in November!)
3. Visayan Spotted Deer (A species I was sad to be missing until I visited Europe in 2010)
4. Barasingha (best sounding name, and a great set of antlers I've seen often from Bronx Zoo's monorail)
5. Marsh Deer (a gorgeous Maned Wolf of a deer that I've had some wonderful wild encounters with)
 
Hard to just pick five…
1. Moose (20 years in Alaska and I’ve probably seen more Moose than any other deer species but Caribou…at least in frequency of observation and not raw numbers)
2. European Fallow Deer (beautiful animals…complementing the Roe and Red Deer perfectly).
3. Axis Deer (pure beauty…I’ve seen these animals feral a few times in Texas as well as behind high fences sometimes in the company of Barasingha and Sambar).
4. Pere David’s Deer (I love the story of this deer…my favorite of the large deer of east and Central Asia coming just in front of the White-lipped Deer and the Sika).
5. The Whitetail. (A beautiful deer and an old friend and my favorite of the North American “Deer”…maybe not as glamorous as a Wapiti, or as roughly hewn as a Muley….a bit more graceful than a Blacktail….but alone among those deer…I think the most noble is the Whitetail. To me it is THE Deer.)
 
I just love deer... particularly...

1. Barasingha.
2. Fallow.
3. Axis.
4. Brow Antlered.
5. Pere David.
6. Wapiti.
7. Red.
8. White-lipped.
9 .Moose.
10. Roe.

and 11. Phillipine Deer.

For grace and beauty, I pick the top four I think. though hard to choose among them all really.
For some reason I prefer the Old World species in general, so ones like White and Black-tailed, Marsh, Huemul( I have never seen these last two) Pudu, etc don't figure on my lists. I also like the more obscure subspecies/races of Red Deer found across Asia. Sika I see so often as I live in Dorset UK where they exist in enormous number that I hardly count them but they have their own appeal. My favourite of the UK species has always been Fallow for their graceful appearance.
 
Lafone said:
Some of our big deer parks are great places for Fallows and Reds (and Sikas where they have them). I enjoy Bradgate park near Leicester, Burghley House, Woburn deer park (when it's open) and the always classic Richmond. Houghton Hall further to the East of Norfolk has lovely white Fallows. Wild deer live around the edges of most of those.

For the wild deer I mainly see CWD in very big numbers (30-40 at a time in the dusk in summer in a couple of fields, amazing) in an estate near Woburn (where of course the invasive population originated) along with Muntjac.

I see Muntjac in most of the RSPB / WWT sites I visit in the East of England - Lakenheath Fen has some well habituated to people, Welney has them on the Lady fen walk along with Roe and CWD and sometimes on the wetland side too. And a few running up the road on the way! Roe I see a lot of around the Oxford area, there's a few sites for birding etc where Roe are in good numbers and if you leave Cotswold Wildlife Park at closing in the summer heading to Oxford you can stop in a layby on the way back just out of Burford and usually catch the Roe grazing in the dwindling light.
Click to expand...
I often see Muntjac and CWD in the local fields by us, Roe Deer have started coming into our garden, which sounds lovely, unfortunately they can be quite destructive.
 
Batto said:
As you didn't specify whether the deer species needs to be alive...:D

- Cervalces latifrons
- Megaloceros giganteus
- Sinomegaceros pachyosteus
- Eucladoceros dicranios
- Candiacervus ropalophorus
Click to expand...
I actually considered the inclusion of extinct deer, for which we have a better selection of when compared to antelope; which have a stronger diversity of extant species, I’d argue.

Furthermore, as long as you have your favorite extinct species in the honorable mention category, they are allowed.
 
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