Sri Lankan Sambar Deer

I did a post on the Sri Lankan sambar deer (on May 16, 2019) we saw in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan sambar is the subspecies of sambar deer found in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. It is one of seven subspecies and the largest of them, as those in the western part of their range are the largest. 

One of the first things that crossed my mind is how they compare size-wise with the North American elk. Kyle Katz in AZ Animals did a post "Sambar Deer vs. Elk: What are the differences?" I'd read that the elk is larger, but not by much. The sambar weighs 240 to 1,200 pounds and the elk 350 to 1,300 pounds. That is the biggest difference. The height is 4 to 5 feet for the sambar and 2.5 to 4.9 feet for the elk, which makes the sambar a little taller. The length is virtually identical: 5 to 8.9 feet for the sambar and 5 to 8.8 feet for the elk. There are other differences mentioned, but these were the ones that stuck out to me. 

An Australian website that sells sambar meat says that the sambar cannot be raised commercially. It notes that the high country of southeast Australia has the largest wild sambar herd in the world. The company that sells their meat gets the sambar from landowners in Victoria and New South Wales. Sambar were introduced into Australia in the 1860s in what is now Kinglake NP in Victoria. In 2017 their numbers were estimated at 750,000 to 1,000,000 in the high country of Australia. 

In India we did not see any sambar in Kaziranga NP in December of 2024, but we saw them in several different zones in Ranthambore NP. On our first safari in zone 3, I provide a photo of one female and of a large male.

Our best looks came on our fourth safari in zone 1. We saw a mother and baby and a number of large males. The best was a large male wallowing in a mud hole. We were watching it when a deer in the nearby forest barked, the signal that a tiger was nearby. The sambar immediately stood up at attention. Our guides noted that it was a great tiger sign (it was awhile later that we saw our first tiger). 

This is the sambar wallowing in the mudhole. 

This is when it jumped up to attention on hearing another deer bark. 

It got out of the mudhole and waited and watched for awhile. 

It eventually walked over to a nearby tree and started to rub its neck against it. 

It then raised its forelegs up the tree and started to rub its belly and antlers. 

Hear it is standing fully upright and is scratching its antlers against the tree limbs.

The range of the sambar from Wikipedia.