Cervus elaphus

		Size: 1.50 m at the withers and 2.50 m long. Weight: up to 200 kg. Distinctive features: the stag (male deer) sheds its antlers in early spring. They are replaced by velvet-covered stubs which grow into bigger new antlers with more branches.

Reproduction: a doe gives birth to one or two white-spotted reddish fawns. Red deer breed in the autumn, when stags bell to attract does. The stags also fight each other. Food: red deer are herbivores. They are particularly fond of tender young tree shoots.

Habitat: though they live in woods and forests, red deer usually come out at dusk. In the Pyrenees: found in forests in the centre and east. Red deer were reintroduced in 1955 for hunting. In the autumn, the stag's belling reverberates through the Iraty, Barousse and Luchonnais forests.

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