Philippine mouse-deer

The mammal

Philippine mouse-deer is a mammal in the family Tragulidae (order Artiodactyla) — Tragulus nigricans.

Range and habitat

The Philippine mouse-deer, also known as the Balabac chevrotain or pilandok (in Filipino), is a small, nocturnal ruminant, that is endemic to Balabac and nearby smaller islands (Bugsuk and Ramos) southwest of Palawan in the Philippines.

The meat is considered a delicacy on the islands, and the skin is also used to make leather.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Diet

It is a solitary, nocturnal animal, but has on occasion been seen in pairs for short periods of time. The Philippine mouse-deer's main diet consists of leaves, flowers, and other vegetation in the dense forest undergrowth.

At sundown, it will wander into mangroves and more open areas to feed.

In crisis

The Philippine mouse-deer is threatened due to a variety of reasons, such as poaching and capture for the wild animal trade. Hunting has also caused a great decline in the number of individuals left. Although no true estimates of the Philippine mouse-deer population have been made to date, they are assumed to be declining in numbers.

The biggest reason for decline is habitat loss.

Philippine mouse-deer is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.

Sources

Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Philippine mouse-deer, Wikidata item Q2098372. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.