Chital Axis axis, also known as spotted deer and axis deer, is native to the Indian subcontinent. A full grown male, or stag, reaches nearly 90 cm at the shoulder, weighing 30--75 kg; the females are lighter and weigh 25–45 kg, reaching a height of 70 cm. The upper parts of its body are golden, completely covered in white spots. The abdomen, rump, throat, insides of legs, ears, and tail are all white. Chital are active throughout the day. A gregarious animal, herds can have 5 to 40 members. When alarmed by the presence of a predator chital flee in groups, instead of scattering, barking persistently. Grazers as well as browsers, the chital mainly feed on fresh grass, browse on a variety of plants and feed on berries knocked down from trees by gray langurs, as seen in the picture. Water holes are visited nearly twice daily, with great caution. The chital are found in large numbers in a variety of habitat like dense deciduous forests, semi evergreen forests and open grassland. The chital herd was photographed on March 26, 2019, at about 5 PM, while on a jeep ride through the Gir forest. Equipment used was a Canon DSLR EOS 550D, with a 75 to 300 Canon zoom; focal length 80 mm, f/4.5, shutter speed of 1/160 s.

圖片編號： 144644765
拍攝者： Njaganath