Chital
Axis axis
— Where the name comes from
Axis is the name Pliny gives to an Indian animal sacred to Bacchus, “with a coat spotted like stars”: the word has stuck without anyone knowing quite where it came from. The Indian name, chital, comes instead from the Sanskrit citra, “speckled, variegated” — the same root that, by way of Persian and the Hindi cītā, gave English its word for the cheetah. The spotted deer and the spotted cat carry the same adjective.
— Facts
- Group
- Mammals · Mammalia
- Order
- Even-toed ungulates
- Habitat
- Open deciduous forest, bushland, grassland at the forest edge
- Range
- The Indian subcontinent and Sri Lanka; introduced to many countries
- Size
- 110–140 cm of body, 30–75 kg
- Diet
- Herbivore — grass above all, then leaves and fallen fruit
- Lifespan
- 9–13 years in the wild
— Characteristics
- 01
It keeps its white spots all its life, not only as a fawn.
- 02
It lives in herds that can pass a hundred animals.
- 03
It is the chief prey of the Bengal tiger and the Indian leopard.
— What sets it apart
It follows langurs to eat their leavings, and in exchange uses their eyes. The monkeys, from the trees, see the tiger long before it does and give an alarm the deer has learnt to recognise; the deer, on the ground, hears and smells what the monkeys cannot, and its own alarm warns them. Meanwhile it eats the leaves and fruit the langurs drop as they feed above. Guides in Indian parks look for tigers by listening for this double chorus: when langur and chital call together, the tiger is on the move.
