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NATURAL HISTORY · CATALOGUE RECORD

Pampas Deer

Ozotoceros bezoarticus (Linnaeus, 1758)

Source-backed taxonomic record

Accepted species in Catalogue of Life’s 11 September 2026 base release. This preserves the source classification and available supporting data; it is not a completed species monograph.

Male pampas deer in Serra da Canastra National Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Male pampas deer in Serra da Canastra National Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Fabio Rage · CC BY 2.0 · Image source

Provider-generated thumbnail requested at 320 pixels; no local editing Local WebP display rendition; resized without cropping.

Open encyclopedia reference

The Pampas deer (Ozotoceros bezoarticus) is a species of deer that live in the grasslands of South America at low elevations. They are known as veado-campeiro in Portuguese and as venado or gama in Spanish. It is the only species in the genus Ozotoceros. Their habitat includes water and hills, often with winter drought, and grass that is high enough to cover a standing deer. Many of them live on the Pantanal wetlands, where there are ongoing conservation efforts, and other areas of annual flooding cycles. Human activity has changed much of the original landscape. They are known to live up to 12 years in the wild, longer if captive, but are threatened due to over-hunting and habitat loss. Since a healthy deer population means a healthy grassland, and a healthy grassland is home to many species, some also threatened. Many North American birds migrate south to these areas, and if the Pampas deer habitat is lost, they are afraid these bird species will also decline.

Wikipedia contributors, Pampas deer; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T02:14:47.267063+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name
Ozotoceros bezoarticus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Name authority
(Linnaeus, 1758)
Common name
Pampas Deer
Rank
species
Accepted status
accepted
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Chordata
Class
Mammalia
Order
Artiodactyla
Family
Cervidae
Genus
Ozotoceros
Extinction status
Recorded extant

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

  1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
  2. kingdomAnimalia
  3. phylumChordata
  4. subphylumVertebrata
  5. infraphylumGnathostomata
  6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
  7. megaclassTetrapoda
  8. classMammalia Linnaeus, 1758
  9. subclassTheria Parker & Haswell, 1897
  10. infraclassEutheria Gill, 1872
  11. orderArtiodactyla Owen, 1848
  12. familyCervidae Goldfuss, 1820
  13. subfamilyCapreolinae Brookes, 1828
  14. tribeOdocoileini Pocock, 1923
  15. genusOzotoceros Ameghino, 1891
  16. speciesOzotoceros bezoarticus (Linnaeus, 1758)

Close classified relatives

No other member of this genus is present in the selected snapshot.

Browse 50 records assigned to Cervidae.

Names & synonyms

Names explicitly linked to this accepted taxon in the source. Synonymy can change with revision.

Recorded nameSource status
Cervus bezoarticus Linnaeus, 1758 Linnaeus, 1758synonym

Documented distribution

Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.

South America

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

  1. https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=625073 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:4BNWT. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.