白唇鹿食性与繁殖的初步观察

PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION ON THE FOOD HABITS AND REPRODUCTION OF THE WHITE LIPPED DEER

1986年,中、日合作在青海玉树、果洛和四川甘孜等地区对白唇鹿的食性与繁殖作了初步观察。发现白唇鹿取食62种植物,隶属24科,其中有24种为最喜食植物。白唇鹿每年9—11月发情交配,怀孕期8个月,翌年5—6月产仔。

The white lipped deer (Cervus salbirostris) is a rare animal with greet economic value, and ondemic in China. In order to proteet, develop and utilize the resources , we study the food habits and reproduction of the white lipped deer, the research was carried out in 1986 by the Sino-Japanese Team of United survey in Yushu, Goluo Provintures of Qinghai Province and Garze Prefecture of Sichuan Province. Of course the data collected before were used in this paper. The white lipped dser is a plant eater. According to direct observation and the analysis of two rumina contents of the deer, the plants which the deer feeds belong to 62 among them 24 species are most preferable (Table. 2), grasses (Gramineae) and se-dges (Cyperraceae) are the most important food of the deer. According to the observ-ation, there was a close relationship between the grazing time and the biomass of the plant communities used. The duration of grazing bouts among stags in daytime was shorter than that among does. More grazing time was spent in the morning, spent lesser at noon and much more time was lying down or ruminate itself, the next graz-ing peak was in the later afternoon. The bite rate of the deer was similar in adult stags and does (Tab. 1). In early Sept. mature stags left their usuallivable range gradually, some of them moved directly to the rutting does and attempt to form their harems. During the rut-ting seaseon,stages show excited, active and eat almost nothing. In order to monopo-lize the harems, there were intense competitions cr fight ng between mature stags. At last, a haremholding stag was produced. The others revetted to wander around the harem far apart over 100m. Mating period lasted about ten days, the body weight and status of harem-holder show a rapid decline, espeeially in the latest period of rutti-ng. So a new vigorous stag usually took it posititon, 8 groups of the deers were obs-erved (Tab. 3 ). Mating season of white lipped deer is diffarent in dissimilar region, especially in different altitude (Tab.4). At this stage does also show their interest in the stags,lick and sometimes mount them. When the mating behavior is over, the conceiving does become staider. Gestation period is about 8 months (230-250 days ) . The mated does will birth give from the tnd of May to late June next year. The breed once a yeas' and the female only gives birth to one young. After the birth of calves, the mother licks clean the body at once. After halfan hour of the birth, the calf is usally able to st-and. Through 2-3 days, dot commonly leads her calf move slowly away the place of birth, reach to the dense shrub or higher grass. The mother grazes or rests within the sight about 1oom far from her calf. If disturbance happen, the calf quickly hides itself,and the mother commonly escapes toward to the opposite direction so as to leave the calf, She attemptes to turn away the sight of the enemies.