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Some believe that the duck billed deer is #imaginary. Who am I to say?
About the size & white-spotted golden brown colouring of the S. American pudú deer or the Javan mouse deer, this rarely seen tiny deer-like quadruped of the Southwest Pacific is not in fact a deer at all. The unexpected duck-like bill is the first hint that this is perhaps not a regular ruminant mammal.
#printmaking #imaginary #linocut #deer #monotreme #platypus #illustration #fairytale #cryptozoology #hybrid #MastoArt
The proper classification of this animal has been very contentious. Neither male nor female duck-billed deer ever sport antlers. Since no duck-billed deer has ever been captured, detailed studies of its anatomy have proven difficult. Reports that its tracks are not those of hooves, but of tiny feet with five wide claws in a shape similar to hooves were hotly debated. The bill was the key to its family tree, only recently confirmed when an entrepid zoologist was able to locate …
the den of one of these secretive creatures, and made a most shocking discovery. The duck-billed deer is a monotrome - an egg-laying mammal like the platypus and echidna! Ethnobiologists report local folklore that the duck-billed deer is venomous, like the platypus, and touching its hind legs can produce hallucinations. …
In fact this traditionally lead researchers to doubt the existence of the duck billed deer at all, attributing stories about the animal to hallucinations caused by an unknown poison. It has been tentatively named Ornithorhynchus pseudopudu.
Adult males can grow to 44 cm (17 inches) in length and females are somewhat smaller at 32 cm (or 13 inches).