49 Fun Facts About Reindeer

The word 'caribou' comes from a Mi'kmaq name that describes the animal doing what?

Pawing away snow. Dictionaries trace the name through Canadian French to Mi'kmaq qalipu, 'snow-shoveller', for the way the animal scrapes down to its winter food.

What makes reindeer unique among all deer species?

Females may grow antlers. A cow keeps hers right through the winter and drops them only in spring, around the time her calf is born.

When do male reindeer usually lose their antlers?

Late autumn or early winter. By then the antlers have done their job: bulls use them to spar over mates in the breeding season, drop them soon after and grow a larger pair the next year.

Between summer and winter, the eyes of Arctic reindeer change from what colour to what?

Gold to blue. The mirror-like layer at the back of the eye shifts colour with the seasons, a change thought to help the animals see through the long dark of the Arctic winter.

Reindeer can see which kind of light that humans cannot?

Ultraviolet. Things that vanish against snow in ordinary light, such as fur, urine and the plants they graze, stand out in sharp contrast to an eye that can see it.

What sound do reindeer make with every step as they walk?

A clicking. Tendons slip over small bones in the foot with each stride, so a herd on the move travels in a steady chorus of clicks.

What is the main winter food of reindeer?

Lichen. So-called reindeer moss is no moss at all, and it grows in pale mats across the northern lands where the herds spend the winter.

Summer caribou herds can swell to tens of thousands of animals partly to get relief from what?

Biting insects. Mosquitoes, warble flies and nose bot flies torment the herds, which bunch together and head for windy ridges and coasts where the swarms thin out.

Norwegian whalers introduced reindeer in 1911 to which remote island on the edge of the Antarctic?

South Georgia. Ten animals brought for fresh meat grew into the world's most southerly herds, which trampled so much wildlife habitat that all were removed in the 2010s.

How soon after birth can a reindeer calf outrun a human?

One day. A calf can suckle within minutes and follow its mother within the hour, a head start it needs because the herd keeps moving and predators single out newborns.

How do reindeer hooves change with the seasons?

Spongy in summer, hard-rimmed in winter. The soft pads grip wet tundra; when they shrink in the cold, the sharp hoof edge is left exposed to bite into ice and crusted snow.

Why do reindeer float so high when swimming?

Hollow, air-filled hairs. The trapped air works twice over, buoying the animal up in water and holding in body heat on land.

What special job does a reindeer's nose do in the cold?

Warms incoming air. Icy air is heated on its way through the nose before it reaches the lungs, and the nose is so tightly packed with blood vessels that scientists joked it explains Rudolph.

Which is the smallest kind of reindeer?

Svalbard reindeer. Short-legged and round-headed, they have lived on Norway's Arctic islands for thousands of years and, unlike most of their kin, stay put instead of migrating.

Reindeer are the only deer to have been what, on a large scale?

Semi-domesticated. Herders use them to pull heavy loads and keep them for milk, meat and hides, a way of life found right around the Arctic.

Which Indigenous people of northern Scandinavia are best known for reindeer herding?

The Sámi. Reindeer give them meat, fur and transport, and in parts of the Nordic countries the right to herd the animals is reserved for them by law.

The herding lands across the far north of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia are traditionally called what in English?

Lapland. Finland bills its share as the home of Santa Claus, whose village, complete with reindeer, sits on the Arctic Circle at Rovaniemi.

Which of these countries, far from the Arctic coast, has a small community of traditional reindeer herders?

Mongolia. The Dukha of the far northern forests keep reindeer for their milk and for riding, and rarely kill one for meat.

A small reindeer herd lives in which British national park?

Cairngorms. Reindeer are believed to have died out in Scotland about 800 years ago, and it took until 1952 for a husband-and-wife team to bring them back to the mountains.

Which Canadian coin has shown a caribou on its reverse since 1937?

The quarter. Artist Emanuel Hahn's caribou arrived when a new monarch's portrait prompted Canada to redesign its coins, and it has given way only briefly to commemorative designs.

What caused about 61,000 reindeer to starve in Siberia in 2013?

Rain freezing on snow. Unseasonal rain froze into a crust of ice that the animals could not break through to reach their food, and some 20,000 had starved the same way in 2006.

How many reindeer pull Santa's sleigh in the 1823 poem 'A Visit from St. Nicholas'?

Eight. Two years earlier, the first verse to put a reindeer in front of Santa's sleigh had given him just one; this poem multiplied the team and named every animal.

In 'A Visit from St. Nicholas', which reindeer does St. Nicholas call by name first?

Dasher. He heads a roll call that leaves out the most famous reindeer of all: Rudolph was not invented until 1939, more than a century after the poem.

Santa's reindeer Donner and Blitzen take their names from Dutch words meaning what?

Thunder and lightning. The poem first printed the pair as 'Dunder and Blixem'; later editions made them Donder and Blitzen, and today's Donner arrived later still.

Who is usually credited with writing 'A Visit from St. Nicholas'?

Clement Clarke Moore. The poem appeared unsigned in a Troy newspaper and was not printed under his name for another fourteen years, and Henry Livingston Jr.'s family has long argued that Livingston wrote it.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was created in 1939 for which department store?

Montgomery Ward. The store had been buying in Christmas booklets to give away and asked one of its own copywriters for a cheaper home-grown one; it handed out 2.4 million copies that year.

Who wrote the original story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in 1939?

Robert L. May. A copywriter at a Chicago department store, he tried each part of the story out on his four-year-old daughter Barbara as he wrote it.

Why did the store that commissioned Rudolph in 1939 at first reject a red-nosed hero?

A red nose suggested drunkenness. The author changed his boss's mind with a colleague's sketches of a bright-nosed deer, drawn from life on a trip to a Chicago zoo.

Which songwriter turned the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer into a hit song in 1949?

Johnny Marks. He was the brother-in-law of Rudolph's creator, who talked him into setting the story to music; he later wrote 'Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree' as well.

Which 'Singing Cowboy' took 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' to number one at Christmas 1949?

Gene Autry. Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore had both turned the song down before he recorded it, and it went on to become one of the best-selling Christmas songs of all time.

Which singer narrates the 1964 TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as Sam the Snowman?

Burl Ives. His snowman also sings 'A Holly Jolly Christmas' in a special that went on to be rebroadcast every Christmas for more than half a century.

In the 1964 Rudolph TV special, what does the misfit elf Hermey want to become?

A dentist. The ambition pays off in the end: Hermey disarms the Abominable Snow Monster by pulling out its teeth.

What is the name of the doe who befriends Rudolph in the 1964 TV special?

Clarice. She tells Rudolph he is cute, and the compliment so delights him that he takes off and flies.

By the end of the 1964 Rudolph special, what has Yukon Cornelius trained the Abominable Snow Monster to do?

Trim a Christmas tree. Prospector and monster had been given up for lost after tumbling off a cliff; Yukon explains that the beast's talent for bouncing saved them both.

Which studio, later famous for Frosty the Snowman, made the 1964 Rudolph special in stop-motion?

Rankin/Bass. Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass ran an American company, but its puppets were animated in Japan, the voices recorded in Canada and the music in England.

Which network aired the Rudolph special from 1972 to 2023 before it returned to NBC?

CBS. NBC, which had first shown it in 1964, marked the homecoming by airing it on 6 December 2024, sixty years to the day after the premiere.

Sven the reindeer is the companion of which Frozen character?

Kristoff. He speaks Sven's thoughts aloud in a goofy voice, a habit the film's directors borrowed from the way they talk for their own cats and dogs.

In a 1979 novelty Christmas hit by Elmo & Patsy, who 'got run over by a reindeer'?

Grandma. The singer, Elmo Shropshire, was a veterinarian who played bluegrass with his wife, and the song's own writer had failed to talk his band into performing it.

The English word 'reindeer' comes from which language's name for the animal?

Old Norse. Its usual word for the animal was hreinn, and the 'deer' on the end is an old word for any beast, so the name has nothing to do with the reins of a sleigh.

What killed 323 wild reindeer in one storm on a Norwegian mountain plateau in 2016?

A lightning strike. It hit a herd on the Hardangervidda plateau, and Norway's environment agency then debated whether to leave so many carcasses lying in the open.

Which rock 'n' roll pioneer recorded the Christmas single 'Run Rudolph Run' in 1958?

Chuck Berry. The single was only a minor hit in 1958 but kept coming back each December, and at the start of 2021, more than 60 years on, it finally reached the Hot 100's top ten.

In 'A Visit from St. Nicholas', the reindeer arrive 'more rapid than' which birds?

Eagles. The poem does not call them reindeer at that point but 'coursers', and it sends them up to the housetop like dry leaves caught in a hurricane.

What are reindeer antlers covered in while they grow?

Velvet. The fuzzy skin carries the blood supply that feeds the growing bone, and big bulls shed it in late summer, a sign that the breeding season is near.

Which of these names did Rudolph's creator consider for his red-nosed reindeer before settling on Rudolph?

Reginald. Wanting a name that began with R, the author also weighed Rollo before choosing Rudolph for his misfit.

The first poem to put a reindeer in front of Santa's sleigh was published in 1821 in which city?

New York. Printer William Gilley issued the anonymous verse in a small booklet for children, two years before a far more famous poem gave the reindeer their names.

Which yearly event leaves bull reindeer exhausted and easy prey for predators?

The autumn rut. Weeks of sparring and chasing rivals, with little time to feed, leave a bull drained and often injured, so he goes into winter with little in reserve.

As of 2025, which category does the IUCN Red List give the reindeer?

Vulnerable. That sits one step short of Endangered: the animal is still widespread across the Arctic, but its wild numbers are listed as falling.

In the 1964 Rudolph special, what nickname does prospector Yukon Cornelius give the Abominable Snow Monster?

Bumble. The monster appears nowhere in the original story; scriptwriter Romeo Muller invented it for television, and in 2014 it got a US postage stamp of its own.

Who named the Eurasian tundra reindeer Cervus tarandus in 1758?

Carl Linnaeus. He filed the animal under Cervus, alongside other deer, and it was only in 1827 that Charles Hamilton Smith gave reindeer a genus of their own.