Do you see something a little strange about the deer in the picture? If your eyes were immediately drawn to those rather
vampiric fangs protruding from its mouth, then your next thought might have been that this must be some sort of freak of nature, an accident of birth. That isn’t how deers come, is it? For the Water Deer, otherwise and popularly known as the Vampire Deer the answer is in the affirmative.
Let’s give the animal its proper name. This is the Chinese Water Deer (
Hydropotes inermis inermis) and it is one of two subspecies (the other being the Korean variety) which have prominent tusks, downward-pointing canine teeth which make it look as if it’s had a run in with a Nosferatu type who has suddenly acquired the ability to ‘turn’ mammals other than humans. This feature makes the subspecies unique – they are the only two members of the genus
Hydropotes.
