Queen Charlotte Islands caribou

Queen Charlotte Islands caribou or Dawson's caribou
Extinct  (1908[1])
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Synapsida
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Cervidae
Subfamily: Capreolinae
Genus: Rangifer
Species: R. tarandus
Subspecies: R. t. dawsoni
Trinomial name
Rangifer tarandus dawsoni
Seton, 1900
Approximate range of subspecies of Rangifer tarandus. Overlap with other subspecies of caribou is possible for contiguous range. 1.Rangifer tarandus caribou subdivided into ecotypes: woodland (boreal), woodland (migratory), woodland (montane), 2.R. t. dawsoni, 3. R. t. granti, 4. Barren-ground caribou R. t. groenlandicus, 5. Groenlandicus/Pearyi 6. R. t. pearyi

The Queen Charlotte Islands caribou or Dawson's caribou (Rangifer tarandus dawsoni) is an extinct subspecies of the caribou that once lived on Graham Island, the largest of the Haida Gwaii islands in British Columbia, Canada. Possible causes of extinction include habitat destruction, introduced disease and overhunting. It was gray in appearance. The last three caribou killed in 1908 can be seen at the Royal British Columbia Museum, where their pelts and bones and preserved and displayed.[2] Recent analysis of mtDNA suggests that the Queen Charlotte Islands Caribou was not genetically distinct from the subspecies from the Canadian mainland.[3]

References

  1. Dawson Caribou, Species at Risk
  2. "Caribou in Canada". Canadian Geographic. 2007-11-01. Retrieved 2016-06-16.
  3. Byun, S.A.; B.F. Koop, and T.E. Reimchen. (2002). Evolution of the Dawson caribou (Rangifer tarandus dawsoni). Can. J. Zool. 80(5): 956–960. doi:10.1139/z02-062. NRC Canada. online
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/4/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.