Rangifer tarandus eogroenlandicus Degerbøl, 1957

Greenland tundra reindeer, East Greenland reindeer, Arctic reindeer

Taxonomy & Nomenclature

The validity of this subspecies has been called into question (Bennike, 1988; Kvie et al., 2016; but see Harding, 2022).

Conservation Status

Extinct or invalid (synonym)

Last record: 1900 (Goodwin & Goodwin, 1973); c.1950 (Day, 1981)

Distribution

Greenland (eastern)

Biology & Ecology

Hypodigm

Media

References

Original scientific description:

Degerbøl, Magnus. (1957). The extinct reindeer of East-Greenland: Rangifer tarandus eogroenlandicus, subsp. nov.: compared with reindeer from other Arctic regions. Acta Arctica 10: 1-57.

Other references:

Banfield, A. W. F. (1961). A revision of the reindeer and caribou genus Rangifer. National Museum of Canada Bulletin 177 Biological Series Report 66: 1-137.

Bennike, O. (1988). The Greenland caribou-zoogeography, taxonomy and population dynamics, by Morten Meldgaard. Arctic 41(2): 146–147. https://doi.org/10.14430/arctic1984

Day, David. (1981). The Doomsday Book of Animals: A Natural History of Vanished Species. New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press.

Gippoliti, Spartaco. (2020). Everything mammal conservation biologists always wanted to know about taxonomy (but were afraid to ask). Journal for Nature Conservation 54: 1257. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2020.125793

Goodwin, Harry A. and Goodwin, J. M. (1973). List of mammals which have become extinct or are possibly extinct since 1600. Int. Union Conserv. Nat. Occas. Pap. 8: 1-20.

Gravlund, P. et al. (1998). Polyphyletic origin of the small-bodied, high-arctic subspecies of tundra reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). Mol Phylogenet Evol. 10(2): 151-9. [Abstract]

Hakala, A. V. K., Staaland, H., Pulliainen, E. and Røed, K. H. (1986). Taxonomy and history of arctic island reindeer with special reference to Svalbard reindeer: A preliminary report. Rangifer 6: 360. https://doi.org/10.7557/2.6.2.676

Harding, Lee E. (2022). Available names for Rangifer (Mammalia, Artiodactyla, Cervidae) species and subspecies. ZooKeys 1119: 117-151. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1119.80233

Kvie, K. S., Heggenes, J., Anderson, D. G., Kholodova, M. V., Sipko, T., Mizin, I. and Røed, K. H. (2016). Colonizing the high arctic: Mitochondrial DNA reveals common origin of Eurasian archipelagic reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). PLoS ONE 11(11): e0165237. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0165237

Lemoine, Rhys Taylor, Buitenwerf, Robert, Faurby, Sören and Svenning, Jens-Christian. (2025). Phylogenetic Evidence Supports the Effect of Traits on Late-Quaternary Megafauna Extinction in the Context of Human Activity. Global Ecology and Biogeography 34(7): e70078. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.70078 [Supporting Information: Data S1]

https://extinctanimals.proboards.com/thread/7714/rangifer-tarandus-eogroenlandicus-greenland-caribou

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