The little red brocket or swamp brocket (''Mazama rufina''), also known as the Ecuador red brocket, is a small, little-studied deer native to the Andes of

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

, Ecuador and northern Peru, where found in forest and

páramo Páramo () can refer to a variety of alpine tundra ecosystems located in the Andes Mountain Range, South America. Some ecologists describe the páramo broadly as "all high, tropical, montane vegetation above the continuous timberline". A narrower ...

at altitudes between . It is one of the smallest

brocket deer Brockets or brocket deer are the species of deer in the genus ''Mazama''. They are medium to small in size, and are found in the Yucatán Peninsula, Central and South America, and the island of Trinidad. Most species are primarily found in forest ...

. The coat is reddish, and the legs and crown are blackish. As recently as 1999, some authorities included both the pygmy brocket (''M. nana'') and Merida brocket (''M. bricenii'') as

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

of the little red brocket. The little red brocket may have formed an important part of the diet of the people of the Pleistocene

Las Vegas culture "Las Vegas culture" is the name given to many Archaic settlements which flourished between 8000 BCE and 4600 BCE.(10,000 to 6,600 BP) near the coast of present-day Ecuador. The name comes from the location of the most prominent settlement, Site ...

References

Mazama (genus) Mammals of the Andes Mammals of Colombia Mammals of Ecuador Mammals of Peru Páramo fauna Vulnerable animals Vulnerable biota of South America Mammals described in 1852 Taxa named by Jules Bourcier {{eventoedungulate-stub