What deer?

Someone at the Nature Reserves Authority gave a species that had already been discovered previously by Giora Ilani, a new name and a new definition

Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean and was convinced that the group of islands he reached were kissing
to the Indian subcontinent and therefore called them the "West Indies". Between the islands and India lies a large continent and a huge ocean. And yet that is what the islands are called even today. Even after the continent was identified and named by Americo Vespucci - the original name of the islands given by Columbus was fixed.

Zoologists who were engaged in sorting animals saw the polar bear swimming in the open sea and therefore called it Ursus maritimus meaning sea bear. Despite the mistake, this is the bear's scientific name even today. Others who saw the giraffe said "there is no such animal" and called it camelopardus which means leopard camel. And again a name given out of lack of understanding and yet still exists.

We all know seahorses. Their scientific name is Hippocampus, although of course it has nothing to do with a horse, yet the scientific name is a muscle and exists. And so it is possible to continue to tell about folk and scientific names given to animals, since it is accepted and customary that the right to name a biological species is given to the person who identified and defined the species. No one opposes the practice, and the (scientific) name is not changed or replaced even when it turns out that it originated by mistake.

Already at the beginning of the twentieth century, two species of deer were defined in Israel: the Israeli gazelle, Gazella gazella,
which was common almost throughout the country, with the exception of the steppe and the wadis that flow into it, in the south. In the steppes and wadis there lives a gazelle of another species: Gazella dorcas, which received the Hebrew name - Negev gazelle. Any observer, even if an amateur, will be able to differentiate between the two species. Both because of the habitats and because of a different external show.

The Hatzava area was a "border" between the two species and although today they live in the Negev deer region, according to evidence it is possible that in the past there were also herds of the Israeli deer in the area and perhaps an "intermediate" subspecies.
Sorting for both sexes was known and accepted until the sixties. In the early XNUMXs, my friend and colleague Giora Ilani was engaged in observations of the deer herds south of Yotveta. Deer that by all accounts and according to all information were …. Negev deer. Giora (later "Tiger Man") set up a hideout on a small hill south of Nahal Tzale and west of Highway Ninety. In a short time, Giora noticed that there are two populations of deer in the area that behave differently.

When a threat or source of intimidation arose, most deer fled in all directions, staying in flat areas. This behavior is typical of the Negev deer. Opposite them was a small herd that grazed separately and when it was frightened the deer would run away up the wadi and the hills. Since he knew animals and had a sharp distinction, Giora turned his attention to the different herd and it became clear to him that they also look different. It turned out that the individuals in the separate herd are different from the conditions of the Negev and similar to the Israeli deer.

Giora called to the scene the one who is considered to be the Urim and Thumm in zoology in Israel, (who was also a teacher and rabbi) Prof. Mendelson. After joint observations, the two came to the conclusion that there are indeed two different species of deer in the place, the Negev deer whose place is clear here and... a deer that bears a surprising resemblance to the Israeli deer. The two came to the conclusion that "it is probably a herd of Israeli deer that came to the place from the desert plateau and over the years was "imprisoned" among the Negev deer populations, did not interfere with them, and thus an isolated population of deer was created, which indeed originated from Israeli deer, but today it is a subspecies.

In order to differentiate them and identify them as a subspecies, we (Joura and Prof. Mendelsohn jointly) gave the gazelle the scientific name Gazella gazella arabica and in Hebrew: the steppe gazelle. (It must be distinguished from a species that lives in the Arabian Peninsula. - probably already extinct, Gazella Arabica, called in Hebrew the Arabian deer.)

That is, once again, Giora Ilani identified and, together with Prof. Mendelson, defined a subspecies that was unknown until then. As the one they identified and defined, the "discoverers" gave it its Hebrew and scientific name. The ninety died except that he was captured and lived in the zoo. Professor Mendelssohn dissected it. and definitively established its identity as a subspecies of the Israeli deer.

I am required for the above story because recently I have seen several times how the people of the Nature and Parks Authority call the different deer population by a different name. I don't know who, why and by what right decided that those deer that Gyora Ilani identified can be called "Zvi Hashitim"? So much so that even in Wikipedia it says "facts" whose portrait is missing.

I am required to do all this because the two dignitaries who identified and named the deer are not with us, so it is appropriate that the young zoologists and the people of the Parks Authority behave as is customary in the zoological establishment with due respect.

By the way, on the website of the Society for the Protection of Nature, both names appear