Rare Wild Animals in Tibet – White-lipped Deer

White-lipped deer is also named white-nosed deer and rock deer. It is a typical animal living in the mountainous areas in Tibet with high altitude and severe cold weather. The white-lipped deer is wide known for its high medicinal value. Not only its meat is edible, its corn cervi pantotrichum, fetus servi, sinew, tail, heart and blood are all precious medicinal materials. It is been listed as a first class national protected wild animal.

Morphological Characteristics of the White-lipped Deer

Generally, the adult white-lipped deer enjoys a weight of at least 200 kilograms and a length of 1.55 to 1.90 meters. It always enjoys a shoulder height of 1.20-1.45 meters and a buttock height of 1.15-1.35 meters. Its years are long and sharp. Most male white-lipped deer have horns with 5 forks while a few aged white deer have horns with 6 forks. The careful tourists making a Tibet tour and encounter with the white-lipped deer would find that the female white-lipped deer has no horns and their nose, lips and mandible are white all year around.

The hair of the white-lipped deer is quite different in winter and summer. In winter, the hair of the white-lipped deer is much thicker and stretchy. Most parts of the body presents a yellowish-brown while its chest, belly and inside parts of the legs are milky white. The lower parts of the legs are brownish yellow or sandy beige. In summer, the hair of the white-lipped deer is very thin and its color is also different from that in winter. There would be different colors in different body parts.

Living Condition and Distribution of White-lipped Deer

The white-lipped deer mainly lives in the forest, bush fallow and alpine meadow with an altitude of 3500-5000 meters. The forest line is the best living environment for the white-lipped deer. For the seeking of food and water, the white-lipped deer might migrate between different regions with different altitude. Generally, they would move around a mountain with rich aquatic weed and bush if there is no hunting or resource shortage.

The white-lipped deer is an endemic species on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and mainly distributes in Qinghai Province, western Sichuan Province and eastern Tibet. A certain number of white-lipped deer living in Hoh Xil National Natural Reserve and tourists making choice among the Tibet train tours might have the chance to have a glance of the white-lipped deer through the window.

Living Habit of the White-lipped Deer

Mostly, the white-lipped deer likes move in the morning or at the sunset. They are always rest in the quiet and secret places during the daytime. They would move to places with higher altitude in the months with relatively higher temperature and migrate back to the lower place when the climate getting cool. Just as the kiangs in Tibet, the white-lipped deer also like to move in group. The white-lipped deer is not a picky eater at all. More than 60 plants have been its food, among which 24 of them are its favorite food, according to a series of researches in the past years.