About Reindeer

This species of deer is native to the Arctic, Subarctic, Tundra, Boreal, and the other mountainous region of North America and Northern Europe. In North America, these deer are called Caribou (Potts, Morton, Shingles, Capoccia, & Hodnett, 2019). There are some special features of Reindeers. The red-colored nose is making it different from other deer.

Microscopy revealed the reason behind the red nose of Reindeer

One Christmas eve, Santa said, “Rudolph with your nose so bright, won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?”

Recently, scientists have revealed the reason behind the bright red nose of Reindeer. Reindeer habitats in an extremely cold region, which ensures efficient nasal microcirculation of blood (Potts, Morton, Shingles, Capoccia, & Hodnett, 2019). This helps in circulating the produced heat to the entire body and it also helps in filtering and humidifying the air, inhaled by the deer. The nasal microcirculation also helps in controlling the inflammation within the body. Scientists have mentioned that there are packed blood vessels in the nasal region, responsible for high blood flow, in order to control the temperature regulation of Reindeer (Ananthanarayanan, 2021).

“help to protect it from freezing during sleigh rides and to regulate the temperature of the reindeer’s brain, factors essential for flying reindeer pulling Santa Claus’s sleigh under extreme temperatures.”, explained by the scientists. They have found that these deer have 25% more blood vessels in their noses, compared to the other parts of their body.

Why only nose?

While searching for food, the mules or nose of the reindeer’s become exposed to extremely cold temperatures, as they search for food under snow. To cope with the extremely cold temperature, reindeer pump warm blood into their nose, making them red (Ananthanarayanan, 2021). The reddish color is due to the heavy blood flow in the nose region of the animal. The high concentration of blood supply in the mules of reindeer is a kind of adaption of this animal to survive in the extreme cold environment, to keep it warm and protect it from freezing. Scientists have conducted infra-red light studies, which have shown that there are some gland-like structures in the nose of the reindeers, which helps the animal to maintain the humidity and fluidity within the body.

 

References

Ananthanarayanan, S. (2021, December). The Statesman Kolkata. Retrieved from Rudolph is real: https://epaper.thestatesman.com/3334583/Kolkata-The-Statesman/29-TH-DECEMBER-2021#page/11/2

Potts, D. A., Morton, E., Shingles, S., Capoccia, M., & Hodnett, R. (2019). Rudolph the Red Shift Reindeer. Physics Special Topics, 18(1). Retrieved from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/287227284.pdf