The Central American red brocket (''Mazama temama'') is a species of brocket deer ranging from southern

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, through

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

, to northwestern Colombia.

Taxonomy

In 1792 Robert Kerr originally described it as a unique separate species as opposed to a subspecies. It was treated as a subspecies of the

red brocket The red brocket (''Mazama americana'') is a species of brocket deer from forests in South America, ranging from northern Argentina to Colombia and the Guianas. It also occurs on the Caribbean island of Trinidad (it also occurred on the island ...

(''Mazama americana'') from

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

, but its karyotype has 2n = 50, while the latter's was initially described as having 2n = 68–70. However, a more recent description gives the red brocket a variable karyotype with 2n ranging from 48 to 54, suggesting it represents several species. It is sympatric with the

Yucatan brown brocket The Yucatan brown brocket (''Odocoileus pandora'') is a small species of deer native to Central America. Taxonomy It has been previously treated as a disjunct subspecies of the gray brocket (''Mazama gouazoubira)'' or a subspecies of the re ...

(''Odocoileus pandora'') over part of its range. Additionally, it was estimated that ''Mazama temama'' diverged from other red brocket deer about 2 MYA. This was estimated through analysis of concatenated sequences from the mitochondrial gene ND2, Cytb, and tRNA-Pro-Control region.Escobedo-Morales, L. A., Mandujano, S., et al. (2016). First phylogenetic analysis of Mesoamerican brocket deer Mazama pandora and Mazama temama (Cetartiodactyla: Cervidae) based on mitochondrial sequences: Implications for Neotropical deer evolution bstract Mammalian Biology, 81(3), 303-313. doi:10.1016/j.mambio.2016.02.003

Habitat

The species is found in primary and secondary tropical forest at altitudes from sea level to 2800 m.

Conservation

In Mexico, it is regarded as an agricultural pest by bean farmers. It is probably threatened by hunting and

deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated ...

. Due to not much being known about the species, it is rated as Data Deficient on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

References

* Ungulates of Central America Mazama (genus) Mammals described in 1792 {{CentralAm-stub