The European fallow deer (Dama dama), also known as the common fallow deer or simply fallow deer, is a species of deer native to Eurasia. It is one of two living species of fallow deer alongside the Persian fallow deer (Dama mesopotamica). It is historically native to Turkey and possibly the Italian Peninsula, Balkan Peninsula, and the island of Rhodes near Anatolia. During the Pleistocene it inhabited much of Europe, and has been reintroduced to its prehistoric distribution by humans. It has also been introduced to other regions in the world.
Taxonomy Some taxonomists include the rarer Persian fallow deer as a subspecies (D. d. mesopotamica), with both species being grouped together as the fallow deer, while others treat it as a different species (D. mesopotamica). The white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) was once classified as Dama virginiana and the mule deer or black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus) as Dama hemionus; they were given a separate genus in the 19th century.
Description
The male fallow deer is known as a buck, the female is a doe, and the young a fawn. Globally, adult bucks are long, in shoulder height, and typically in weight, while does are long, in shoulder height, and in weight.Burnie D and Wilson DE (Eds.), Animal: The Definitive Visual Guide to the World's Wildlife. DK Adult (2005), However, regional variations occur; for example, bucks in southern England average in shoulder height and about in weight, while does there average in height and about in weight. Globally, the largest bucks may measure long and weigh . Fawns are born in spring around and weigh around . Their lifespan is around 12–16 years.
Much variation occurs in the coat colour of the species, with four main variants: common, menil, melanistic, and leucistic – not to be confused with the inherited genetic condition, albinism. Leucistic coats are the lightest in colour, almost white; common and menil are darker, and melanistic is very dark, sometimes even black (and may be confused with the sika deer).
Common: Chestnut coat with white mottles, it is most pronounced in summer with a much darker, unspotted coat in the winter. The light-coloured area around the tail is edged with black. The tail is light with a black stripe. Menil: Spots are more distinct than common in summer and no black is seen around the rump patch or on the tail. In winter, spots are still clear on a darker brown coat. Melanistic (black): The coat is dark with shades of black and greyish-brown all year. No light-coloured tail patch or spots are seen.
Leucistic (white, but not albino): Fawns are cream-coloured; adults become pure white, especially in winter. Dark eyes and nose are seen. The coat has no spots.Prior, John. Dear Watch. David & Charles Inc., 1987. p. 80.
Most herds consist of the common coat variation, yet animals of the menil coat variation are not rare. The melanistic coat variation is generally rarer, and the white coat variation is very much rarer still, although wild New Zealand herds often have a high melanistic percentage.
Only bucks have antlers, which are broad and shovel-shaped (palmate) from three years. In the first two years the antler is a single spike. Their preferred habitat is mixed woodland and open grassland. During the rut, bucks spread out and females move between them; at that time of year fallow deer are relatively ungrouped compared with the rest of the year, when they try to stay together in groups of up to 150.
Agile and fast in case of danger, fallow deer can run at a maximum speed of over short distances. Being naturally less muscular than other cervids such as the roe deer, they are not as fast. Fallow deer can also jump up to high and up to in length.
The diet of the European fallow deer has been described as highly flexible, and able to adapt to local conditions. A 1977 study of European fallow deer in the New Forest of Britain found that European fallow deer were selective mixed feeders, feeding primarily on grass (and to a less extend on herbs and browse) during the spring and summer (March–September), while primarily feeding on acorns and other mast during autumn (from September) until late December, with winter foods including grass as well as shrubs like brambles, bilberry, heather, holly, as well as ivy and coniferous material.
Distribution During the Last Interglacial (also known as the Eemian) around 130-115,000 years ago and prior, European fallow deer were widely distributed over Europe, occurring as far north as the British Isles. During the Last Glacial Period (115,000-11,700 years ago) the range of the species collapsed due to unfavourable climate conditions, surviving in refugia in Anatolia and probably the Balkans and possibly elsewhere, though the fossil record of their distribution during this time is sparse.Fernández-García, J. L. (2012) The endangered Dama dama mesopotamica: genetic variability, allelic loss and hybridization signals. Contributions to Zoology, 81.4, 223-233.
Turkey Turkey is the only country known to have definitively natural populations of European fallow deer since the Last Glacial Maximum, but populations there (alongside those of the Persian fallow deer, which also formerly occurred in Turkey) have since become endangered and almost fully extirpated. European fallow deer in Anatolia underwent a major population decline due to the spread of agriculture (leading to the deforestation of lowland forests) and hunting, and populations in the Marmara and Aegean regions went extinct by the turn of the 20th century. Other wild populations of Turkish fallow deer survived for longer on islands at Ayvalık Islands Nature Park, Gökova, and Adaköy near Marmaris, but also appear to have died out in recent years. Currently, the only extant wild population of the species known to be undoubtedly natural lives in Düzlerçami Game Reserve in the Mount Güllük-Termessos National Park in southern Turkey, although the area has been largely fenced since, making the population only semi-wild. This population is very few in number and is genetically distinct from other European fallow deer.
A 2024 study suggests that the Turkish populations of fallow deer are ancestral to most fallow deer found throughout Europe as well as introduced populations worldwide. The translocations of fallow deer out of Turkey were facilitated by Roman-era trade networks. The only other refugium found was one in the Balkans, whose surviving descendants are significantly fewer in number.
Native but originally extinct
Southern Balkans On mainland Greece and some Greek islands, such as Corfu, Kythira, and Thasos, that were connected to mainland due to lower sea level or proximity to land, fallow deer were present during the last ice age.Yiannouli E. & Trantalidou K. 1999: The fallow deer (Dama dama Linnaeus, 1758): Archaeological presence and representation in Greece. The Holocene History of the European Vertebrate Fauna. Modern Aspects of Research. Workshop, 6th to 9nth April 1998, Berlin: 247-281. A belief arose that the species was almost extinct in Greece, returning during the Neolithic. Contrary to that, remains indicate that reduced numbers survived in several parts of the country like in Thessaly, Peloponnese and Central Greece, increasing and becoming common during mid Neolithic, but mostly east of Pindus mountain range and especially in Macedonia and Thrace.Trantalidou K. 2002: The Rhodian fallow deer. Game and trophy since prehistoric times, M. Μasseti (ed.), Island of deer. Natural history of the fallow deer of Rhodes and the vertebrates of the Dodecanese (Greece), Rhodes, Prefecture of Rhodes, 159-164. During the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age, the species survived on the islands of Corfu and Thasos, appeared on Euboea, and began to be introduced by man to other islands, including Crete, some of the Cyclades, Rhodes, Chios, Lesbos, Samos and Sporades.Dermitzakis M.D. & P.Y. Sondaar 1985: The Quaternary Fossil Mammals from North-eastern of Kerkyra (Corfu) Island (Ionian Sea, Greece). Rapports et Proces-Verbaux des Reunions Commission Internationale pour l'Exploration Scientifique de la Mer Mediterranee Monaco 292: 155-156.
Early-historic-period remains have been found in eastern Greece and on the islands of Thasos, Chios, Rhodes and Crete. A few surviving individuals were observed on Samos in 1700, while the species became extinct on Lesbos late in the Ottoman period.Tournefort, J.P. 1717: Relation d'un Voyage du Levant, fait par ordre du Roy. Contenant l'histoire ancienne & moderne de plusieurs Isles de l'Archipel, de Constantinople, des côtes de la Mer Noire, de l'Armenie, de la Georgie, des frontières de Perse & de l'Asie Mineure. Avec les plans des villes & des lieux considérables; Les Plans des Villes & des Lieux conſiderables; le Genie, les Mæurs, le Commerce & la Religion des differens Peuples qui les habitent; Et l'Explication des Médailles & des Monumens Antiques. Enrichie de Descriptions & de Figures d'un grand nombre de Plantes rares, de divers Animaux; Et de plusieurs Observations touchant l'Histoire Naturelle. Amsterdam 604p. On the Greek mainland, wild fallow deer survived until the 16th century in northeastern Chalkidiki, until the 19th century in the forests of Mount Olympus, Vermio Mountains, Arakynthos, Evrytania and Boeotia and until the 1910s in Thesprotia. The last individuals were hunted in Acarnania during the 1930s.Μπάου Ν. 1872 Παληά κυνήγια στην Αθήνα, Αναδρομή στα περασμένα.Sforza, C. 1948: Jugoslavia: storia e ricordi.Sidiropoulos, Polymeni, & Legakis (2016). The evolution of Greek fauna since classical times. The Historical Review/La Revue Historique, 13, 127-146.Μιγκλή Δ. 2006 Οικολογία και ηθολογία ενός απομονωμένου πληθυσμού Πλατωνιών (Dama dana L.) στη νήσο Λήμνο. Μεταπτυχιακή ∆ιπλωματική Εργασία, ΑΠΘ. Θεσσαλονίκη. Σελ. 50.Belon, P. 1555: Les observations de plusieurs singularitez et choses memorables, trouvées en Grece, Asie, Iudée, Egypte, Arabie, et autres pays estranges.Bowen, G.F. 1852: Mount Athos, Thessaly, and Epirus: A Diary of a Journey from Constantinople to Corfu. London.Leak, W.M. 1835: Travels in Northern Greece. Vol. III. London 620p.Μπάου, Ν. 1952: Ο λήσταρχος. Κυνηγετικά Νέα 247(9): 333-334.
In Bulgaria, the autochthonous population of fallow deer is believed to have declined and disappeared after the 9th or 10th centuries, and the species was reintroduced there much more recently.Boev Z. 2016: Subfossil Vertebrate Fauna from Forum Serdica (Sofia, Bulgaria), 16-18th Century A.D. Acta zool. bulg., 68(3): 415-424. The species remained in European Turkey into the 19th century.Ünal Y. & Çulhacı H. 2018: Investigation of fallow deer (Cervus dama L.) population densities by camera trap method in Antalya Düzlerçamı Eşenadası Breeding Station. Turkish Journal of Forestry 19(1): 57-62. A male fallow deer was captured in Thrace in 1977 and translocated to Düzlerçamı, suggesting that a small population existed there at that time.Arslangündoğdu Z., Kasparek M., Sarıbaşak H., Kaçar M.S., Yöntem O. & Şahin M.T. 2010: Development of the population of the European Fallow Deer, Dama dama dama (Linnaeus, 1758), in Turkey. Zoology in the Middle East 49(1): 3-12. In Albania (possibly in Butrint), the fallow deer seemed to be plentiful during the first half of the 19th century.Best, J.J. 1842: Excursions in Albania; Compromising a Description of the Wild Boar, Deer and Woodcock shooting in that country.