Musk deer

Musk deer Temporal range: Late Miocene–recent PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Siberian musk deer
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Artiodactyla
Family:	Moschidae Gray, 1821
Genus:	Moschus Linnaeus, 1758
Type species
Moschus moschiferus Linnaeus, 1758
Species
M. anhuiensis – Anhui musk deer M. berezovskii – Dwarf musk deer M. chrysogaster – Alpine musk deer M. cupreus – Kashmir musk deer M. fuscus – Black musk deer M. leucogaster – White-bellied musk deer M. moschiferus – Siberian musk deer

Musk deer can refer to any one, or all eight, of the species that make up Moschus, the only extant genus of the family Moschidae.^[1] Despite being commonly called deer, they are not true deer belonging to the family Cervidae, but rather their family is closely related to Bovidae, the group that contains antelopes, bovines, sheep, and goats. The musk deer family differs from cervids, or true deer, by lacking antlers and preorbital glands also, possessing only a single pair of teats, a gallbladder,^[2] a caudal gland, a pair of canine tusks and—of particular economic importance to humans—a musk gland.

Musk deer live mainly in forested and alpine scrub habitats in the mountains of South Asia, notably the Himalayas. Moschids, the proper term when referring to this type of deer rather than one/multiple species of musk deer, are entirely Asian in their present distribution, being extinct in Europe where the earliest musk deer are known to have existed from Oligocene deposits.