When I was a little tad, I remember my grandfathers telling me of the old days, before the Depression, when they both farmed with horses. There were a few pictures around of the beasts: big, strong plow horses with magnificent thick, arched necks, broad chests, and huge hooves made for digging into wet spring soils to pull a plow or a harrow. I always wished I’d seen those amazing animals for myself.
But I also remember, back in those long-ago days, wondering why Santa Claus used reindeer to pull his sleigh when such big, strong beasts were available. Well, it turns out that old Kris Kringle had a good reason; reindeer are in fact perfectly suited for pulling sleighs.
What makes reindeer the perfect animal to pull Santa’s sleigh?
Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center Executive Director Sarah “Howie” Howard says they are biologically engineered for this work.
“They’re just built to pull, and they’re built to handle sleighs and carry all those toys around the world,” Howard said.
The scientific term for Santa’s reindeer is “Saintnicolas Magicalus” and they are similar to the common reindeer found at the conservation center.
Reindeer stand out from other deer species: They have the largest and heaviest antlers of all deer species and have hair completely covering their nose.
Reindeer are also the only cervids (deer) where the females have antlers, although they are smaller than the antlers sported by the males. They are creatures of the far north, a circumpolar animal, meaning that they inhabit all of the far-northern lands from Scandinavia to Alaska to Canada. Our rather larger versions here in Alaska we call caribou, but they are all cold-adapted, and all members of the genus Rangifer.
Howard explains that hair plays an important role in their Christmas mission.
“That’s really beneficial for when they’re out there in the cold, especially when they’re in high altitudes, flying through the air,” she said. “They need to have hair on their little nose so they don’t get super cold.
As Christmas approaches, keep an ear out for any hooves on the roof. Howard says you’ll know it when you hear it.
