Wild Life / reindeer

They actually can have red noses

Hi, friends — welcome to week #6 of my newsletter about animal encounters. I’ve been curious about reindeer (aka caribou) and how they became part of holiday lore. So this is a departure from actual animal encounters (I’ve never seen a reindeer in the wild) and more about animal folklore. Sometimes folklore intersects with facts in fascinating ways. Here’s to the caribou (aka reindeer aka Rangifer tarandus). — Amy Jean

What is a reindeer? In North America they’re known as caribou (everywhere else they are reindeer, though of course there are many other names in many other languages). In my imagination they take an abstract form, embedded since childhood as part of Santa’s team. I have basic questions about their existence. For example: Do they exist? (I know the answer is “yes,” but that’s about it.) And: How did they end up flying around the world on Christmas Eve? (What is the root of this completely bonkers but genius story?)

Let’s begin with the animal, which, yes, does exist, and has a long history with humans. Reindeer (I’m sticking with “reindeer” so that the animal and legend can align) are related to the common white-tailed deer that roam the suburbs and woodlands of temperate North America. Unlike their counterparts in warmer climes, however, reindeer live in sub-Arctic and Arctic regions circling the North Pole. Indigenous peoples living in these areas have long managed reindeer in semi-domestic herds as a resource for food, pelts, and tools. Evidence of reindeer hunting goes back at least 10,000 years to the Stone Age.

Reindeer are perfectly adapted to cold weather, with thick, soft, carpet-like coats. Their fur covers under their feet and over their noses so that no bit of skin is left exposed. They have a dense bed of tiny capillary vessels across their noses that aids in temperature regulation. As reindeer forage for food in the snow, warm blood flows through these capillaries, keeping their noses from freezing. If the animal becomes too warm from exertion, these capillaries, which are close to the surface, also help vent some of the extra heat. Fun fact: because of this capillary action, reindeer can actually have red noses (link below!).

Reindeer dig down through the snow to reach their favorite (only) winter meal of lichen. (The Mi’kmaq word “xalibu,” meaning “the one who paws,” is likely the basis for the French Canadian “caribou.”) Reindeer are among the few animals (most are much smaller—think snails) that can process lichen as food. They are ruminants, like cows, with four stomach chambers.

You might wonder how reindeer can possibly see lichen (or anything else) through the snow. Reindeer perceive ultraviolet light, an enormously helpful trait in the low-light, blue-light conditions of Arctic winter. Lichen absorbs ultraviolet light and, so, for the reindeer it appears black in contrast to the snow. Fur and urine also absorb ultraviolet light, which is handy for avoiding fur-covered predators (wolves, for example).

The eyes of reindeer actually change with the seasons. The tapetum (a layer behind the retina that is common to many animals—it’s the thing that reflects light if you take a picture of your dog at night) changes from a golden color in summer to deep blue in winter. The shift, which results from the pressure of constantly dilated eyes in low light, seems to make their eyes more sensitive. Their feet—specialized hooves with four “toes”—also change with the seasons (wider in summer for traction and tighter in winter for snow).

So: reindeer are pretty amazing creatures (and this isn’t even the half of it). It’s a wonder they don’t fly, too. The legend of Santa and his reindeer seems to have many threads that pull in various directions (from the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” to marketing reindeer meat, to marketing Coca Cola, to Walt Disney). In truth, marketing of some sort likely brought everything together in the strange but irresistible manner we now know. But let’s suspend our disbelief for a moment and pull another thread—one that takes us to the shamans of the Sami people who live in Arctic regions of Eurasia.

In this thread, reindeer pulled the sleighs that brought traveling shamans to people’s homes. Before visiting, a shaman (who brought gifts of healing) would have ingested a fly agaric, the familiar and charismatic red-topped, white-spotted (psychedelic) mushroom we know from stories like Alice in Wonderland. Among the hallucinogenic effects of the mushroom include feelings of flying. Apparently, and this is kind of incredible, reindeer love (love) to eat fly agarics, too.

Could this story be the root of our flying friends? Something about it appeals, and it’s not exactly the flying or the fly agaric Santa (though both are pretty great, no doubt). I think it’s more simple than that: I want a reindeer to lead me to warmth and safety (with their soft, carpet-like coats), to survive and thrive at the edges of life, to guide me through the endless darkness (with their color-changing, ultraviolet eyes).

What is a reindeer? A real creature walking the planet. We should all be so very lucky.

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Reindeer links—

• Here’s a lovely, slightly trippy 6 min. animation about the story of Sami shamans and flying reindeer, by Matthew Salton, via The Atlantic. Mycologist Lawrence Millman (whom I worked with on Fungipedia) is featured.

• More about the fly agaric and Christmas from the US Forest Service, featuring some fantastic old postcards, plus a video from the BBC that shows real reindeer shuffling through the snow for mushrooms.

• As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
  When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
  My favorite line from “A Visit from St. Nicholas” [The Poetry Foundation]

• Reindeer eyes are fascinating—here’s more about their changing color at National Geographic, and ultraviolet vision at Atlas Obscura.

• I find this BBC Earth video of reindeer very soothing.

• Last but not least, I love (love) the infrared image of the reindeer’s “red nose” in this study [Smithsonian Magazine]; there’s also a great Ask a Biologist segment about reindeer’s noses from ASU.

Red fox stories—

• A beautiful sighting of a red fox in Chernobyl, in last week’s comments.

Also—

• The idea of “What is a reindeer?” was inspired by my friend and writer Chloe Shaw, whose debut memoir What Is a Dog? comes out in July.

• My reindeer drawing is for sale; please reply if you’re interested. I used some new metallic gouache and wonder if I should have coated everything in glitter.

• Next Friday is Christmas and then it’s New Year’s (2021!). I might pop in once or twice with a picture but won’t resume the weekly newsletter until January 8. Please keep an eye out for wildlife and let me know what happens.

• If you want to know more about this newsletter, here’s a quick interview I did for Substack. As always, please forward to friends and family who would enjoy—thank you!