A small deer of the temperate rainforests of Argentina and Chile. It makes trails through the undergrowth to feeding and resting places.
Males have short antlers that point backward, helping them avoid snagging on low branches.
On Chiloé Island in southern Chile, researchers examined whether pudus browsed seedlings planted in forest restoration areas. Three experiments compared tree seedlings at different sites. The share of seedlings with browsing damage ranged from 9.3% to 84.0%, varying with tree species and site conditions.
In burned forest, seedlings of one tree species were browsed more often where shrubs had been removed: 84.0% compared with 68.9% where shrubs remained. In degraded old-growth forest, browsing also tended to increase in more degraded plots with more incoming light. The observations show how pudu feeding can intersect with the vegetation conditions around young trees in forests recovering from disturbance.
IUCN Red List · Near Threatened · Global
The 2016 global IUCN assessment lists the Southern Pudu as Near Threatened (NT). It was assessed on 2016-01-25.