Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Artiodactyla > Cervidae > Axis > Axis axis

Axis axis (chital; axis deer)

Synonyms: Cervus axis (homotypic)

Wikipedia Abstract

The chital (pronounced /t͡ʃɪtl̩/) or cheetal (Axis axis), also known as spotted deer or axis deer, is a deer found in the Indian subcontinent. The species was first described by German naturalist Johann Christian Polycarp Erxleben in 1777. A moderately sized deer, male chital reach nearly 90 centimetres (35 in) and females 70 centimetres (28 in) at the shoulder. While males weigh 1,000–75 kilograms (2,205–165 lb), the lighter females weigh 25–45 kilograms (55–99 lb). The species is sexually dimorphic: males are larger than females, and antlers are present only on males. The upper parts are golden to rufous, completely covered in white spots. The abdomen, rump, throat, insides of legs, ears and tail are all white. The antlers, three-pronged, are nearly 1 metre (3.3 ft) long.
View Wikipedia Record: Axis axis

Invasive Species

View ISSG Record: Axis axis

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
3
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
21
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 7.2
EDGE Score: 2.1
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  79.367 lbs (36.00 kg)
Birth Weight [1]  6.931 lbs (3.144 kg)
Diet [2]  Frugivore, Herbivore
Diet - Fruit [2]  10 %
Diet - Plants [2]  90 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  2 years 1 month
Male Maturity [1]  2 years 6 months
Gestation [1]  7 months 16 days
Litter Size [1]  1
Litters / Year [3]  1
Maximum Longevity [1]  21 years
Snout to Vent Length [3]  5.74 feet (175 cm)
Weaning [1]  4 months 2 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Himalaya Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan No
Western Ghats and Sri Lanka India, Sri Lanka No

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

+ Click for partial list (54)Full list (147)

Predators

Canis aureus (Golden Jackal)[7]
Cuon alpinus (Dhole)[8]
Felis chaus (Jungle Cat)[7]

Consumers

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 3Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 4Food habits of ungulates in dry tropical forests of Gir Lion Sanctuary, Gujarat, India, Jamal A. KHAN, Acta Theriologica 39 (2): 185-193,1994.
♦ 5"Fig-eating by vertebrate frugivores: a global review", MIKE SHANAHAN, SAMSON SO, STEPHEN G. COMPTON and RICHARD CORLETT, Biol. Rev. (2001), 76, pp. 529–572
♦ 6Frugivory of Phyllanthus emblica at Rajaji National Park, northwest India, SOUMYA PRASAD, RAVI CHELLAM, JAGDISH KRISHNASWAMY, S. P. GOYAL, CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 87, NO. 9, 10 NOVEMBER 2004
♦ 7Majumder, A., K. Sankar, Q. Qureshi & S. Basu (2011). Food habits and temporal activity patterns of the Golden Jackal Canis aureus and the Jungle Cat Felis chaus in Pench Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 3(11): 2221–2225
♦ 8Cuon alpinus, James A. Cohen, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 100, pp. 1-3 (1978)
♦ 9Nunn, C. L., and S. Altizer. 2005. The Global Mammal Parasite Database: An Online Resource for Infectious Disease Records in Wild Primates. Evolutionary Anthroplogy 14:1-2.
♦ 10Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
♦ 11Species Interactions of Australia Database, Atlas of Living Australia, Version ala-csv-2012-11-19
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0