Central Asian red deer

The Central Asian red deer, Cervus hanglu, also known as the Tarim red deer, is a deer native to Central Asia, where it was once widely distributed but is now scattered in small population units in several countries. Johann Andreas Wagner proposed the name in 1844 for a deer specimen from Kashmir whose antlers differed from those of the red deer. IUCN assessors provisionally recognised it as a distinct species in 2017 and have listed it as Least Concern since then. It is thought to comprise three subspecies: the Kashmir stag, which is endemic to Kashmir in India, the Bactrian deer of Central Asia and the Yarkand deer of Xinjiang in western China. Its fur is light ginger, and it split from the European red deer between about 770,000 and 126,000 years ago.