Visayan spotted deer

Appearance

This species is easily distinguished from other species of deer in the Philippines by the distinctive "A"-pattern of beige spots on its deep brown back and sides. Other distinctive features include its cream underparts and white fur on the chin and lower lip. The animal's head and neck are brown, but lighter than the body, and the eyes are ringed with paler fur.

Adults range from 125 to 130 cm (49 to 51 in) long from the head to the base of the tail, 70 to 80 cm (28 to 31 in) in shoulder height and 40 to 60 kg (88 to 132 lb) in weight.

Range and habitat

The species' range once covered the shoreline up to at least 2,000 m above sea level. Its habitat is in dense cogon grassland, and primary and secondary forest. Most of its habitat consists of areas where its diet of young shoots of cogon grass and young low-growing leaves and buds are plentiful.

The Visayan spotted deer, also known as the Visayan deer, the Philippine spotted deer or Prince Alfred's deer, is a small, endangered, primarily nocturnal species of deer found in the rainforests of the Visayan Islands of Panay and Negros. It once was found across other islands, such as Cebu, Guimaras, Leyte, Masbate, and Samar.

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

Diet and breeding

The deer have no specific breeding season as sightings of young in the wild occur year-round, and captive individuals breed throughout the entire year. The publication of a reference genome in 2025 should provide resources for guiding breeding and support the development of targeted conservation strategies among the captive population.

The diet of the deer, that consists of a variety of different types of grasses, leaves, and buds within the forest, is the primary indicator of its habitat.

In crisis

An estimated 2,500 mature individuals survived worldwide in 1996, according to the IUCN. Today's surviving wild number is uncertain. Conservation efforts are currently underway, with the intention of preserving the remaining population, but have been poorly funded and supported. Deforestation has greatly contributed in the decline of the deer.

Isolation and reduction of population is likely to have led to some herds becoming moribund. Due to the severe pressures faced by the deer, the IUCN has twice listed it as an endangered species: firstly, in 1994 (when it was delisted within the year), and again, in 1996 (this listing has continued until the present).

Visayan spotted 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 Visayan spotted deer, Wikidata item Q645732. 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.