Ozotoceros bezoarticus
Silhouette: Steven Traver · PhyloPic
In 3 days >90%
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. There are approximately 80,000 Pampas deer total, with the majority of them living in Brazil.
Fossil records indicate that New World deer traveled to South America from North America as part of the... Wikipedia →
Call0:25
Brazil · 2023
© Douglas Meyer · XC983362 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Recording0:01
2018
© Nicolás García Del Castello · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Serra da Canastra National Park | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 2 | Emas National Park | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 3 | Iberá National Park | 🇦🇷 Argentina |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reserva de Fauna y Flora Pan de Azúcar | 🇺🇾 Uruguay | |
| 2 | Zooparque Itatiba | 🇧🇷 Brazil |
Very likely
About 70% of wildlife watchers report a Pampas Deer sighting in Emas National Park on a given day, based on 74 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 2nd most-seen of the 15 mammals we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May–July and November
In those months about 80% of wildlife watchers report a Pampas Deer in Emas National Park on a given day, against about 40% in April, the lowest month. Those are among Emas National Park's driest months, with about 50 mm of rain a month against 190 mm in January.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Pampas Deer sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
2nd of 3
Of the 3 parks where we can rate Pampas Deer sightings, Emas National Park ranks 2nd at about 70%. The best odds are in Serra da Canastra National Park (Brazil, about 80%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Pampas Deer is recorded against all the mammals logged in Emas National Park (74 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
