SUNDARBANS: Summer May 2015: This Chital carries fine antler, rare in this mangrove

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Canon 550D, Canon 75-300mm

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Dada,
This one has got fine antlers. I wonder when fleeing from a tiger if good antlers would be a disadvantage. I have seen Sambars in other forests fleeing with their antlers slightly lowered and still crashing through the overhead leaves.

In which area was this clicked?

I remember in the previous trip to Sundarban we had seen some chitals being kept in enclosure for introduction. I don't remember seeing them having good antlers, or may be they were juveniles. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Debasis Bose]

Symmetrical antlers is symbol of strong, beautiful and brave. Lovely composition

[Mrudul Godbole]

Nice sighting of this young male resting in shade. It seems the deers introduced in Sunderban by the forest department are doing well. That is a good news. Did you sight anymore with antlers? How were the sightings this time? Look forward to more. Thanks for sharing.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Nice to see this stag from sunderbans shakti da. Is it true that cheetal in the sunderbans eat crabs, esp the stags in velvet?

Patra sab : I too have wondered about what you mentioned and remember reading something on this on the net about cheetal stags with large antlers being targeted by predators..I think from a research paper of Dr.AJT John singh in which he corroborates this. In the same paper he also mentions an interesting fact that dholes eat up the antlers of cheetal stags in velvet like biscuits...:)

TFS
Roopak

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Roopak Bhai,
Our Great Teacher has observed in his intensive work on Mammals :

"In the Sundarbans, the Chital swims across channels, feeds on plants very different from those of its usual haunts, and even eats crabs."
- M.Krishnan

Kind regards,
SaktiWild