Endangered
White-bellied musk deer
Moschus leucogaster
The white-bellied musk deer or Himalayan musk deer is a musk deer species occurring in the eastern Himalayas of Nepal, India, and possibly Bhutan and China.
Appearance
The white-bellied musk deer is well adapted for high elevations, with adaptations like a dense coat of coarse hairs with air-filled cells to insulate against the extreme temperature, well-developed dew claws, and broad toes that provide increased stability on steep slopes. In place of running or leaping, this species tends to "bound." Finally, fawns of this species have white spots to help with camouflage, but as they mature these spots disappear. The white-bellied musk deer has a waxy substance called deer musk that the male secretes from a gland in the abdomen.
The maximum length of these tusks is about 10 cm (3.9 in).
Range and habitat
The Himalayan musk deer is endemic to the eastern Himalayas and is distributed eastwards from the Annapurna Himalayas and Kali Gandaki Gorge. It inhabits high alpine environments above elevations of 2,500 m (8,200 ft). The white-bellied musk deer or Himalayan musk deer is a musk deer species occurring in the eastern Himalayas of Nepal, India, and possibly Bhutan and China.
Habitat labels include forest.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
At night, they emerge to feed in more open habitats, and preferably select leaves of trees and shrubs with high protein and low fibre contents. During the winter, they subsist on poorer quality lichens, and even climb small trees to feed upon leaves that would otherwise be out of reach.
The young musk deer live off their mother's milk until they are about six months old and able to eat regular foods available in the wild.
In crisis
It is listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List because of overexploitation resulting in a probable serious population decline. Since the species is endangered and hard to find, its value on the wildlife trade market is increased still further. The hunting and trade of the white-bellied musk deer is the main threat to the species.
It is listed as an endangered species in Pakistan and is also found in a number of protected areas throughout. Even so, the uneven enforcement of legislation across its range has meant little impact on preventing the rampant trade in the species. Improving the enforcement of antipoaching laws is a key priority for the conservation of this species.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
White-bellied musk 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 White-bellied musk deer, Wikidata item Q1082275. 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.
