The Not-So-Tiny Reindeer
Quick: name the eight tiny reindeer.
Most people can—thank you, Gene Autry and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”—but the truth about Santa's reindeer-powered sleigh might surprise you. In fact, what you think you know about reindeer may be all wrong and Merry Christmas to that.
First of all, when you say "reindeer" in America and Canada, you're referring to a domesticated animal. If the animal is wild, it's a caribou. Yep, same animal, same deer family.
Fossil evidence shows that caribou evolved up to six million years ago somewhere in South America and migrated at some point northward and to Great Britain. In the scheme of historical things, they were Johnny-come-latelys, domesticated around 3,000 years ago, or about 12,000 years after cattle moved to the farm. Today, reindeer are common nearly everywhere in the northern hemisphere nearest to the poles.
Ancient Norsemen called reindeer "hreinin," which apparently means "horned creature," and if you personally know one, you'd know why. Unlike most others in the deer family, both male and female reindeer grow antlers, with the male reindeer's reaching a total length of nearly six feet. If those sound like something you'd foolishly mess with, consider the weight of a male reindeer (up to 700 pounds). Then consider their cloven, four-toed feet, which are smaller but harder in the winter, but which will expand in a snowshoe-like fashion so that the reindeer can carry their bulk through snow and ice. Surprisingly, their feet soften and grow larger when hard-packed snow and icy creeks are not an issue for them.
Santa picked his pack animals correctly, when you take into account that he lives at the North Pole and he travels high in a cold atmosphere. Reindeer specifically evolved to survive freezing temperatures: they're covered from head to the underside of those feet with insulating hair that traps heat. Hair covers a reindeer's nose, too, which helps it breathe by heating the icy air before it reaches the lungs.
Caribou are great migrators—some will travel more than 3,000 miles in a year, which is more than any other migrating animal. Calves can run within an hour-and-a-half of birth. In the winter, to ensure that a migrating caribou stays with its herd at times when sight is limited (such as during a blizzard), the animal's legs make a clicking noise when it moves.
So why did a jolly old elf pick reindeer and not, say, eight moose?
It seems that the reindeer's reputation as a pack animal had something to do with it—the idea of eight moose is hilarious, but not practical—and so, in the early 1800s, a poem by an anonymous author mentioned reindeer and Santa together. In 1823, it was official, and the eight reindeer even had names and a longer story to go with their Boss's Christmas Eve Work.
Rudolph got a red nose in 1939, and a television special in 1964. But before that, he got a song that remains the tip-top best-selling Christmas song of all-time.
Thanks, Gene Autry. ▼
Terri Schlichenmeyer’s second book, The Book of American Facts and Trivia, comes out this winter. Her first (Big Book of Facts) is available now.