Chevrotain

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"Kancil" redirects here. For the car, see Perodua Kancil.
Not to be confused with Chevrotaine.

Chevrotain

Temporal range: Oligocene–Recent

PreꞒ

Pg

N
 Tragulus kanchil

Scientific classification

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Artiodactyla

Infraorder: Tragulina

Family: Tragulidae
H. Milne-Edwards, 1864

Genera

• Hyemoschus
• Moschiola
• Tragulus

Chevrotains, or mouse-deer, are small even-toed ungulates that make up

the family Tragulidae, the only extant members of the infraorder Tragulina. The
10 extant species are placed in three genera,[1][2] but several species also are known only
from fossils.[3] The extant species are found in forests in South and Southeast Asia, with
a single species, the water chevrotain, in the rainforests of Central and West
Africa.[4] They are solitary or live in pairs, and feed almost exclusively on plant
material.[4] Chevrotains are the smallest hoofed mammals in the world. The Asian
species weigh between 0.7 and 8.0 kg (1.5 and 17.6 lb), while the African chevrotain is
considerably larger at 7–16 kg (15–35 lb).[5] With an average length of 45 cm (18 in) and
an average height of 30 cm (12 in), the Java mouse-deer is the smallest extant (living)
ungulate or hoofed mammal, as well as the smallest extant even-toed ungulate.[6]
In November 2019, conservation scientists announced that they had
photographed silver-backed chevrotains (Tragulus versicolor) in a Vietnamese forest for
the first time since the last confirmed sightings in 1990.[7][8][9]