Description

Biggest deer in Spain; males weigh about 140 kg in the North and 80 kg in the South. Females are smaller than males. They have a reddish-brown coating in the summer and a greyer colour during the winter.

Males have a very large, ramified ornament, which they lose in March or April, immediately developing the next one.

Feeding and reproduction

The deer are fed of grass and roots from bushes and trees, varying its habits throughout the year. They also eat numerous fruits such as acorns, and others.

The heat season is in September and October; males concentrate in the bellowing places, where they low to defend their female harem from other intruding males. Sometimes they fight over females. Gestation lasts about 263 days, giving birth to a single young, which sticks to the mother for about two years if it's a male, or until reproduction if it's a female.