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The Ethiopian deer is a cryptid ungulate reported from Ethiopia, and possibly Sudan, Kenya, and Somalia.[1] It is suggested that it may represent an African population or subspecies of the fallow deer (Dama dama), long thought to have existed in Egypt, Sudan, and possibly Ethiopia, mainly on the basis of artwork.[2] An alternate theory posits that it is a deer-like giraffid related to the Miocene Climacoceras.[1]
Attestations[]
A deer depiction from Porc-Epic Cave in Oromia, Ethiopia (Henri Breuil).
Several pieces of artwork depicting deer-like ungulates with branching antlers are known from Ethiopia. Cave art specialist Abbé Henri Breuil figured examples from Porc-Epic Cave in Dire Dawa, Oromia, and the monastery of Zara-Brouk, in Amhara.[3] The latter example was identified, "improperly" in Breuil's opinion, as an elan (French: "elk" or "moose"),[3] which is sometimes interpreted as referring to the eland (Taurotragus oryx).[4] A possible deer depiction is also known in rock art from the Kenyan side of Mount Elgon.[5]
Writing in 1888, Augustus Blandy Wylde, who visited Ethiopia on a diplomatic mission, noted that "many travellers in Abyssinia mention haing seen [deer]," although he dismissed such claims.[6] According to Breuil, local Ethiopians told anthropologist Marcel Griaule that the deer-like animal depicted at the Zara-Brouk monastery still existed in the montane forests around Lake Tana.[3] When Bernard Heuvelmans visited Louis Leakey in Nairobi in 1967, Leakey informed him that a deer-like animal had been reported in "fairly open habitat" in southern Ethiopia several times in recent years.[7]
Theories[]
The fallow deer (Dama dama) is controversially theorised to have inhabited Ethiopia, as well as Egypt and Sudan (CC BY 4.0).
The Ethiopian deer has been identified with the Miocene giraffid Climacoceras, originally described as a cervid (Willem van der Merwe).
The only known native deer in Africa is a subspecies of the reed deer (Cervus elaphus barbarus) inhabiting the wooded Atlas Mountains of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. A prehistoric deer, Megaloceros algericus, is also known from the Pleistocene of Algeria and Morocco.[8] These species are restricted to North Africa in the Palearctic realm, and no definite deer fossils are known from the Afrotropical realm, south of the Sahara. However, other cryptid deer are reported from Africa, including the Saharan deer, acil, Tanganyika deer, and tak-horn. Rock art specialist Alexander R. Wilcox suggested that the deer depiction at Zara-Brouk may have been based on a picture of a deer seen in a foreign book, and that the Porc-Epic art, while "not datable," may have a similar origin.[4]
The prehistoric and historical existence of the fallow deer (Dama dama) in the Nilotic countries of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia, has often been suggested on the basis of artistic depictions, including those cited by Breuil,[9][10][8] and Christine Janis suggests that this provides the likeliest explanation for modern Ethiopian deer reports.[2] Prior to the discoveries of apparent deer depictions, fallow deer were already believed to inhabit what is now Ethiopia by some naturalists. The claimed presence of fallow deer in Africa is controversial, and Egyptian depictions may represent foreign specimens of the Persian fallow deer (D. d. mesopotamica), rather than a native population;[8][11] or merely an eastern population of Barbary red deer.[11] Others argue that while fallow deer may have existed in the Nile regions and North Africa, including Ethiopia, they were likely originally introduced by humans, possibly Phoenicians or Romans.[9][11] However, some sources accept the presence of native fallow deer in Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia during the Pleistocene, and possibly more recently, on the basis of the alleged artistic depictions.[10][12][13] Fallow deer may have survived in Egypt until at least the 19th century, when a skin was reportedly acquired at Wadi Natrun,[11][14] and deer antlers and skeletons are still rarely acquired in Egypt's Eastern Desert in modern times.[14] The fallow deer of northeastern Africa was described as a new species, Dama schaeferi, in 1926, but this is no longer considered a valid taxon.[11]
Some recent evidence of deer in Sudan also exists: a possible cervid molar from Singa or Abu Hugar in Sennar, adjacent to Ethiopia, is stored in the London Natural History Museum; and a fragment of deer antler, now lost, was collected at Wadi Halfa in northern Sudan.[8] An alleged deer bone was also discovered at the Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene site of Bur Eibi in Somalia, but is thought to have been misidentified.[4]
In 1936, Donald Gordon MacInnes described the prehistoric giraffid Climacoceras, based on Miocene remains from Kenya. The ossicones of this genus are notably antler-like, and MacInnes interpreted the animal as a cervid rather than a giraffid. Based on this, and on the "striking resemblance" of the ossicones of Climacoceras to the antlers of the Ethiopian deer, he suggested that the deer depictions represented surviving Climacoceras, and that it or a descendant either went extinct in historical times, or still existed in Ethiopia.[15] Leakey, who had often worked with MacInnes, later suggested the same identity to Heuvelmans, who supported it.[1][7] Although Janis argues that the Climacoceras theory is highly unlikely,[2] Heuvelmans maintained that its identity as a giraffid rather than a deer does not disqualify it as a candidate.[7] MacInnes, Leakey, and Heuvelmans all suggested that the same animal was represented in the Egyptian deer depictions.[15][1]
See also[]
- Abyssinian bear
- Wobo
Notes and references[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Heuvelmans, Bernard "Annotated Checklist of Apparently Unknown Animals With Which Cryptozoology Is Concerned", Cryptozoology, No. 5 (1986)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Janis, Christine "A Reevaluation of Some Cryptozoological Animals," Cryptozoology, No. 6 (1987)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Breuil, Henri "Peintures Rupestres Préhistoriques du Harrar (Abyssinie)," Comptes Rendus des Séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Vol. 44 (1934)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Willcox, Alexander Robert (1984) The Rock Art of Africa
- ↑ Wright, Richard "A Painted Rock Shelter on Mt Elgon, Kenya," Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, Vol. 27 (1961)
- ↑ Wylde, Augustus (1888) '83 to '87 in the Soudan
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Heuvelmans, Bernard "Checklist Corrected and Completed," Cryptozoology, No. 6 (1987)
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Werdelin, Lars & Sanders, William Joseph (2010) Cenozoic Mammals of Africa
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Joleaud, Léonce "Les Ruminants Cervicornes d'Afrique," Mémoires de l'Institut d'Égypte, Vol. 27 (1935)
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Brentjes, Burchard "Hirsche in Nubien und Aethiopien," Säugetierkundliche Mitteilungen, Vol. 17, No. 3 (1969)
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 Houlihan, Patrick F. "Some Remarks on Deer (Cervidae) in Ancient Egypt," The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 73, No. 1 (August 1987)
- ↑ Goss, Richard J. (1983) Deer Antlers: Regeneration, Function and Evolution
- ↑ Groves, Colin "Family Cervidae, Deer," Mammals of Africa, Vol. 6 (2013)
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Ikram, Salima & Bertini, Louise "Dear, oh Deer! The Adventures of Compiling Comparative Collections: A Cervid Skeleton Allegedly From Egypt's Eastern Desert," Economic Zooarchaeology: Studies in Hunting, Herding and Early Agriculture (2017)
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 MacInnes, Donald Gordon "A New Genus of Fossil Deer From the Miocene of Africa," Journal of the Linnean Society, Vol. 39, No. 267 (1936)