Month: July 2025

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Family resemblance

Just like people, some reindeer have huge resemblance within their families, and some more so than others. I thought I’d write a wee blog to talk about a couple of the best examples in our herd today – and then I discovered that Ruth had beated me to it. So here’s a couple more examples of striking family resemblance, and you can read Ruth’s ‘Mini-me’ blog here.

Family ‘looks’ run especially strongly in Holy Moley’s family. She herself is the spitting image of her mum Galilee, and Holy Moley’s daughter Mississippi popped out looking like a carbon copy too. Here are Mississippi and Holy Moley in the photo above, taken in September 2024 when Mississippi was 16 months old – whilst obviously smaller still as she’s not full-grown, the resemblance is uncanny. Holy Moley only grows a single antler each year due to an injury as a calf, and it seems Mississippi even tried to emulate this look by breaking hers! I’d loved to have had the opportunity to photograph Galilee alongside the two of them, but sadly she died when Holy Moley was only 4 months old.

This is half-brothers Jelly and Cicero, who are both extremely similar. Jelly is a touch darker, but both grow matching antlers and for much of the year they can be pretty hard to tell apart, especially as they are the same age as each other. The best family resemblance of all is between their dad Houdini and Cicero (on the right in the photo), but once again I’ve never had the opportunity to get a photo of them all together, and Houdini is now very old and age has now changed his appearance somewhat. Houdini was originally born in Sweden and imported to join our herd in 2011, hence we bred from him a fair bit to use his ‘fresh’ genetics, but these two offspring are the most similar in appearance, both to him and to each other. All three grow relatively simple antlers for males, with not too much going on at the tops compared to some reindeer.

There are some other good examples in the herd, but it can be difficult to get photos of certain individuals together, so maybe I’ll add another blog further down the line when opportunity arises!

Hen

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Stone Age Reindeer Art

50,000-12,000 years ago the world was in the grip of the last glacial period (the Ice Age). During this time, reindeer were abundant across Eurasia’s glaciated landscape. Huge herds of them provided a vital source of food and materials to our late Stone Age ancestors. At the same time, early human artwork was flourishing. There are several examples of ice age art from modern-day France that reveal how significant reindeer were to the people living there – not only as a resource but as a source of inspiration.

One of the oldest examples is the ‘Reindeer Panel’ in Chauvet-Pont D’Arc cave, featuring reindeer alongside other animals. These palaeolithic paintings are estimated to be up to 36,000 years old!

‘The Reindeer Panel’ in the Chauvet-Point D’Arc Cave, discovered by Jean-Marie Chauvet, Eliette Brunel, and Christian Hillaire in 1994.

17,000-11,000 years ago, Magdalenian culture emerged in Western Europe. Reindeer were such an important source of food and materials for these people that it’s sometimes referred to as the ‘Reindeer Era’. 

The Font-de-Gaume cave in France is home to the ‘Two Reindeer’ piece. The original is very faded, but reconstructions reveal a duo of reindeer facing each other. This site is dated at about 19,000-17,000 years old.

A reconstruction of ‘Two Reindeer’, Unknown Artist (Above). The original ‘Two Reindeer’ from the Font-de-Gaume cave, formally discovered in 1901 (Below).

This engraving of a calf – and what looks like the broken remains of a larger reindeer – is carved into a reindeer metatarsal (foot bone). It’s dated to 14,000-10,000 years ago.

Engraved bone excavated in 1863 by Henry Christy and Edouard Lartet at the La Madeleine site in Tursac, France.

The ‘Swimming Reindeer’ piece might be the most famous example of palaeolithic reindeer art. This carving depicts two reindeer carved into a piece of mammoth tusk. It’s thought to be 13,000 years old. This was around the time that a changing climate caused reindeer populations in France to start to fragment.

‘Swimming Reindeer’, discovered in 1866 by Peccadeau de l’Isle and pieced together from two parts in 1904.

About 11,000 years ago, the last glacial period retreated, and with it the ice sheets and reindeer were pushed north and to higher altitudes. Our planet entered its current ‘interglacial state’ – the Holocene. As humans adjusted over the millennia to a warmer world, reindeer became a distant memory in most of western Europe. In the Arctic/Subarctic regions though, humans formed an even closer relationship with reindeer which eventually transitioned from hunting to herding.

Kate

Links/References:

Chauvet Cave:
https://archeologie.culture.gouv.fr/chauvet/en/reindeer-panel

Magdalenian Culture: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Magdalenian-culture

Font-de-Gaume Cave: https://www.lascaux-dordogne.com/en/patrimoine-culturel/grotte-de-font-de-gaume/

Engraved Bone: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_Palart-419

Swimming Reindeer: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_Palart-550

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Antler shapes

Antlers are my ‘thing’, here at the Reindeer Centre, so it’s a natural subject to turn to for a blog when Ruth is starting to look a little twitchy about needing the rest of us to crack on and provide her with some blogs to keep her going through the calving season (no chance of having enough time to write any then!).

I thought I’d write about different antler shapes amongst female reindeer in this blog, as there is so much variation. Reindeer tend to grow the shape shaped antlers from year to year, but there are factors that influence it, such as general body condition, or whether they’ve got a calf at foot to raise – so more variation tends to be seen amongst the females from year to year than the males.

I’ll start with Marple, above, who I would say grows very much the ‘average’ style of antlers. Upright shafts with multiple tines growing backwards from them; forward-pointing tines originating from the base, and a ‘blade’ – a tine from one antler growing towards the nose. I’ve written more about Marple’s antlers in the past here. However, we also see a wide range of shapes from year to year, such as:

The ‘Bonsai’: Indigo’s antlers are very convoluted and wiggly here!
The ‘Salad tongs’: Meadow grew this incredible set of antlers as a two year old – I’m not sure what happened to them but they would have made excellent salad tongs!
The ‘Ant’: Merida’s efforts in 2024 were, quite franky, ridiculous.
The ‘Unicorn’: Multiple reindeer over the years have only produced a single antler, such as Dixie here. It’s a natural occurance that just happens sometimes.
The ‘Gate hooks’: If you’re going to grow a gate hook on your head, might as well grow two! Russia looks very strange….
The ‘Lazy antlers’: Israel couldn’t be bothered to put too much effort into her antlers this year, but all the effort went into her body instead. Look at those rolls of back fat!!!
The ‘I don’t need no antlers’. Arnish was a ‘polled’ reindeer, one who never grew antlers, but she was built like a tank so no-one messed with her at all – the lack of antlers certainly didn’t hinder her in the herd!

Read more about polled reindeer in a previous blog here, and if you’re wondering whether we ever sell antlers, you can find out here. There’s more general info about antler growth here too.

Hen

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