The tiny new deer species, which stands 38cm tall and weighs less than 10kg, was discovered in the Huancabamba Depression, a broad river valley in the Peruvian Andes <\/p>
A new species of deer has been discovered in the Andes Mountains in Peru, according to a study published in the Journal of Mammalogy<\/a>, making it the first new cervid to be describe in South America for over 60 years.<\/p> The discovery was made by a joint Peruvian-Brazilian-Chilean team led by Guillermo D\u2019El\u00eda from the Universidad Austral de Chile<\/a>. The new species has been named\u00a0Pudella carlae<\/em>\u00a0to\u00a0<\/em>honour Peruvian biologist Carla Gazzolo.<\/p> The new species is a form of pudu \u2013 the world’s smallest deer. Found only in the Andes, these dwarf deer occur from the chilly rain-soaked paramo grasslands down into the thick cloud forests below. <\/p> The first sightings of the new species came when team-member Javier Barrio saw some strange-looking mini-deer in the wild. Inspired, the team visited a museum to take measurements and study the colour patterns of pudu specimens. They also analysed genetic variations between these and field-collected material.\u00a0<\/p> The body of the new species is a much rustier brown than its relatives. It also has a paler head and ears. At around 38cm tall and weighing 7-9 kg (the weight of a Jack Russell terrier), its size lies between that of the other two known pudus. <\/p> Not only was the new species different in all metrics, but it also has a unique distribution, living in the Huancabamba Depression, a broad and arid river valley that divides the Andes in northern Peru. <\/p> Pudella carlae<\/em>\u00a0is the newest addition to the hundreds-strong list of plants and animals that are endemic to the 50km-wide dry valley.\u00a0<\/p> Main image: Ramiro Y\u00e1bar<\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n The tiny new deer species, which stands 38cm tall and weighs less than 10kg, was discovered in the Huancabamba Depression, a broad river valley in the Peruvian Andes <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":36764,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/03\/strange-looking-dwarf-deer-found-hidden-in-a-remote-valley-in-the-andes-mountains.jpg",1875,1250,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/03\/strange-looking-dwarf-deer-found-hidden-in-a-remote-valley-in-the-andes-mountains-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/03\/strange-looking-dwarf-deer-found-hidden-in-a-remote-valley-in-the-andes-mountains-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/03\/strange-looking-dwarf-deer-found-hidden-in-a-remote-valley-in-the-andes-mountains-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/03\/strange-looking-dwarf-deer-found-hidden-in-a-remote-valley-in-the-andes-mountains-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/03\/strange-looking-dwarf-deer-found-hidden-in-a-remote-valley-in-the-andes-mountains-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/03\/strange-looking-dwarf-deer-found-hidden-in-a-remote-valley-in-the-andes-mountains.jpg",1875,1250,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The tiny new deer species, which stands 38cm tall and weighs less than 10kg, was discovered in the Huancabamba Depression, a broad river valley in the Peruvian Andes","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/36763"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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