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The size of the Sambar deer (Rusa unicolor) - with one edition:

With my new policy of "know the prey too", I have made this new image of the body size of the Sambar deer, the largest deer species in south east Asia. Check it out:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Now, with the explanation, I most add that this was the most difficult image that I have made (at this moment) by the simple fact that there is not much data!

When I began with the image, it was incredibly hard to found a side view of a male Sambar, I found this and another one from Sri Lanka. I choose this one, from India. Latter, as I already have data from real weights, I began to search body measurements, and there began the problem because there are not real measurements published in any part, just copy-paste from Walker's Mammals of the World (W.M.W.), or like Wikipedia which quotes a book that looks more for kids than a professional documentation.

At the end, I returned to Schaller (1967) in "The deer and the tiger" and I searched the data that he quotes. It was old literature from the classic naturalists, so I decided to search the original works of Jerdon, Blanford, Lydekker and Sterndale. For my surprise, all of them repeated the same data with the exception of Lydekker which quoted only heights (different figures). So, I decided to use the data from Jerdon and Blanford (which only present two figures) and I infer that they are real measurements, like all of them done in their time. However, searching in the Journals of the Bombay Natural History Society, I found this jewel:

*This image is copyright of its original author

As you can see, this is the largest and heaviest Sambar deer actually measured (as far I know), and as Morris measured his tigers "between pegs", I assumed that this specimen was also measured in the same way. As there is no more data to get an average, in this case I scaled this large specimen, as is the only real measured animal in the data. As you can see, I extended a little the length of the legs in order to get the height quoted, which suggest me that maybe the height recorded is from the shoulder to the tip of the hove, which don't represent the real standing height. So, the normal color image is the largest male Sambar ever measured and weighed, a real record in the natural world.

Now, there are the famous measurements quoted from Walkers' M. W., which many people will say: why I don't take it in count? Well, I include them in a different line and I scale the red figure for comparison and guess what? The size, from my point of view, is too much exaggerated and judging by the few available pictures (modern and old) of hunted Sambars with people around, this size seems out of the reality, specially for the maximum weight that they quotes, which is of just 260 kg.

Well, after that hard search (which I most confess, it was not exhaustive, I would like to see Brander's book too), I focused in the weights. In the old literature, there are only male specimens, and all over 200 kg. Schaller (1967) stated that these records are biased and that the average was closer to 200 kg, but the reality is that he don't takes in count the other "smaller" Sambars inside the Maharaha's book. So, although the average seems still a bit large, the figure is more reliable, at some point, and not based in captive specimens, which at the time of Schaller, were probably still not too well in comparison with they wild counterparts.

On the modern side, there are only four males from Nepal and two from Panna. The problem was that all the males from Nepal bottomed the scale of 500 lb used (which proves that the average proposed by Schaller was too small), however I included them as this shows that Sambar deers in rich habitat can weight that much. The two specimens from Panna (180 and 250 kg) represents the largest and smallest in scientific record, although probably some of those of Nepal could be heavier. In modern records, we do have females, so I include them. As the study from Panna presents two weights in the case of the females, I used an average of the figures to calculate the overall average by sex.

So, that is the great explanation. If someone have more data about the size of the Sambar deer in India and Nepal, please put it here so I can include it in the comparison. For any help, thank you for advance.

Enjoy the image, greetings to all.

Edition:

Searching to the web, I found another body measurement, this time from Hornaday (1885) which by the way measured his animals between pegs. So, with two animals actually measured and the ranges presented by Jerdon and Blanfonrd (assuming are from real animals), I dare to calculate an average size. Interestingly, most of the figures are from shoulder height, just like the case of the gaur. So, I prepared this new image of the size of the Sambar, in this occasion the normal color is the average sized male and the grey is the largest specimen actually measured, which is the giant from Morris (image of the document above). Check it out:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I definitely excluded the figures of Nowak (1999) as they are greatly inaccurate, just like the head-body length of 280 cm for a tiger, 250 cm for a lion and 190 cm for a leopard that he present!

I feel better with this new representation, but like I said many times, if you found other real measurements that I could use, please feel free to post them.

Greetings to all. :smile: Reply