Indian Wildlife — The Sambar
This article is part of a short-lived series I wrote on Indian Wildlife. The series, rather unimaginatively titled ‘Indian Wildlife’, focuses on imparting basic knowledge on the natural history of the more common and often ignored mammal species found in India. Rather pedantic but nonetheless essential accounts in my opinion.
The Sambar (Rusa unicolor) is the largest deer found both in India and South- East Asia. The Sambar is a handsome animal standing 48 to 56 inches at the shoulder and reaches a length of 6 to 7 feet and possess a 12-inch tail. It has a winter coat ranging from grey brown to dark brown and sometimes almost black in colour. The winter coat molts into a summer coat of brown to chestnut brown. Its rump, the underside of its tail and the inner side of its legs are light to rusty brown in colour. The tip of its tail is black and the base and back of its ears are whitish. It has an unkept ruff of hair around its neck. The sambar starts acquiring its winter coat sometime in October and is in full possession of it by December. The molt into its summer coat is completed by May.
The Sambar is widely distributed in India and is found in the thorn forests, dry and moist deciduous forests, evergreen and the semi-evergreen forests. The Sambar favours both graze and browse which explains its presence in areas where graze is limited. It is however a predominantly forest animal, nocturnal and shy,typically coming out into the open at dusk and during the night and retreating into the cover of trees soon after dawn. The Sambar is one of the few species of Indian deer that take to water readily and can often be seen swimming, submerged up-to their necks.
They live in small herds usually comprising of a hind with a yearling and one fawn. Sometimes two to three adult hinds come together temporarily to form a medium sized herd. Large herds as in the case of the chital are not formed. The stags are transient members of the herd and when not with a herd are usually solitary or in groups of two to three. These associations are usually for a short duration and an adult stag spends most of his life in solitary splendor. This makes for an extremely loose and fluid social organization and the only relationship of some permanence is between mother and fawn.
A herd of Sambar is usually seen proceeding in single file with an adult hind leading. They also have a tendency to wallow and seem to do so almost all times of the year. This is done primarily to get rid of body parasites. They also have a habit of stamping with their hooves and forming a circular bare patch devoid of vegetation.
The ‘Sore Spot’ is a unique feature found only among the sambar. On the ventral surface of the sambar’s neck is a line of hair which is darker and less sleek than the surrounding pelage. This runs down the mid-line from the throat to the lower part of the neck. During the rut, which occurs from November to December, the hair falls and the skin sloughs off giving a circular area about an inch to two in diameter a bloody appearance. This area exudes a fluid and is commonly called the ‘sore spot’. There were conflicting opinions in the past as to the function and nature of the sore spot. It is now however acknowledged that due to the limited period of the year when it occurs and its widespread appearance among the animals it is in all probability a gland and the fact that it appears at the beginning of the rut suggest that the two are interlinked.
Stags in rut were believed to establish a territory during the rut, which they then proceed to defend against the intrusion of other stags. Indian shikar literature is full of accounts of such stags laying claim to whole valleys. It now appears likely that after roaming fairly widely during the initial period of the rut the stag then starts concentrating its activity in a certain area that overlaps partly or wholly with that of other stags. There seems to be no evidence of territorial exclusiveness.
There is a tendency these days to condemn and thus ignore the large wealth of Indian shikar literature. While a number of stories may seem a bit difficult to swallow and most of the observations were made looking down from the barrel of a gun there is still a lot of information to be got from these accounts. The Indian sportsmen were also a keen observer of wildlife and in his own way a conservationist. In those days the study of natural history was not widespread and most, if not all, of our knowledge of certain animals comes from these writings. The Bombay Natural History Society has a large archival collection of observations made in the field by sportsmen which formed the data base for further research by eminent biologists. Its is therefore highly recommended that we revisit these books if only to get a feel of the abundance of game we possessed at the turn of the century and the dismal state of affairs today
