Vampire Deer and the Dark Ages

Happy to report that I'll be excavating at the Roman site of Vindolanda again in May.  Should be an interesting year.  We've got most of the usual merry crew of Anaerobes back together again and the area under excavation will be those intriguing late Roman/Dark Age strata.  True detritus of empire.

I remember one of my first years digging there, before I knew that many people.  I'd go off for walks just to explore.  One one of them I was astonished to see a deer about the size of a decent jack rabbit go bounding off into the woods.  It was a muntjac deer, one of those little critters that British Imperialists encountered, thought was cute and brought home to their estates.  Of course they escaped and are now an invasive, albeit still cute, species in the wild.

They are not so bad, but at the Bell Museum recently I ran across these guys.  Variously called water deer or musk deer they have these alarming tusks.  (When looking them up I discovered that female muntjacs also have small but still concerning fangs). 

These have also gotten loose in England and small populations of what are also called "Vampire Deer" can be found.

With that thought in mind, best of luck to all my Wisconsin deer hunting friends.  Let's be careful out there.