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| Thai Wildlife > Rare or Extinct |
Schomburgk's Deer
Species: Cervus schomburgki (Blyth, 1863)
Synonym: Rucervus schomburgki (Blyth, 1863)
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Cervidae
Common names: Schomburgk's Deer; Sman (in Thailand)
The sman is unique to Thailand and once roamed the central plains. It has a graceful body with beautiful antlers making it one of the most beautiful deer.
But they were hunted into extinction in 1938. Today we are left only with pictures and stories from the past.
It had two equal sized toes on their hooves and antlers were found only on the male. The brow tine grew to an angle of 60 degrees to the face and the length of each branch was about 30 centimeters. At each end were 2 sub-branches. The beam was about 12 centimeters in length and perpendicular to the brow tine. The branches grow on top of each other for two to three layers. On average each side had about 8-9 branches. This gave the sman's antlers an appearance similar to a basket thus earning it the name "basket deer".
The average length of the sman's antlers was 65 centimeters.
It measured at the shoulder a height of 1 meter. The body hairs during winter were rough and long and the color was brown with a darker shade or black found on the nose area. The cheeks, body, and underside of the tail were lighter.
The female was very similar to the la-mang and caused villagers to believe that there was only male sman. They would mate with the la-mang and the offspring would be either a sman or la-mang.
Living along the Chao Phya River plains around Bangkok and the surrounding areas, they roamed the area from Samut Prakarn to Sukhothai and in the east they were found in Nakhon Nayok to Chachengsao. On the west they were found from Suphan Buri to Kanchanaburi, truly native to Thailand.
It did not like dense forests because their antlers would get caught in and lived in small herds feeding in the early evenings to the morning.
During the day the sman would sleep and hide in tall grass. It is believed that the sman are now extinct from Thailand and from the world. The last reported sman has been shot in Kanchanaburi in 1932 and there was another report of one beaten to death at a temple in Samut Sakorn in 1938 because it came too close people.
There has been no reports of sightings of the sman from that day to the present. Prior to the extinction there were efforts by foreigners to capture these animals and breed them, however all failed because the Thais did not cooperate because they do not see the importance.
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