Species Saturday Vol 14: Reindeer and their arthritic knees

Our first Species Saturday of December, and we are getting seriously Christmassy now. It's time to talk about Rudolph and his mates...

🦌 Reindeer and Caribou are in fact the same species, but in Europe they are called Reindeer, and in North America they are called Caribou in the wild and Reindeer only if they are domesticated

🦌 Both female and male reindeer grow antlers (whereas in other species it's usually only the males), and their antlers are the largest and heaviest of any deer species, think about how much weight they have to carry with that and the sleigh!
🦌 Reindeers really do have red noses (sort of) - they have lots of tiny veins in their noses to circulate warm blood to keep them warm

🦌 Some subspecies of reindeer have knees that make clicking nosies when they walk so it's easier for them to stay together in a blizzard (so if your knees click when you walk or get up, congratulations you'd do well in a blizzard)

Info taken from Nat Geo, FDA & Blog NWF