6 cute facts about the tiniest deer in the world

Although they might not look like it, Mouse Deer can actually swim. They use this to get away from predators since their size does them no favors when it comes to intimidating other animals.

Despite looking adorably harmless, this creature has very sharp teeth. These are not very useful when dealing with much larger predators, but they come in handy in dominance quarrels with other members of the species.

You’d think that something this cute would want to take advantage of the attention, but mouse deer are very vulnerable to predators, so they’ve learned to be very cautious about revealing themselves to other animals.

Still don't think these creatures are introvert enough? Mouse deer were considered lost to science for as long as 30 years! No one saw them since the early 90s, but the conservationists didn't give up until 2019, when a mouse deer was finally caught on camera again in Vietnam.

There is more than one kind of mouse deer, and while some look dainty and petite at around 5 pounds (2 kg), some can even reach 30 pounds (13 kg). Which is pretty big! For a mouse deer, of course.

One of the ways that this adorable animal has found to protect itself is to seem bigger than it is acoustically. Mouse deer use their hooves to make a ruckus and hopefully ward off predators who might prefer to look for less noisy prey.

Despite their names, these animals are neither mice nor deer. Though they are related to the deer family, mouse deer are in a family all of their own, biologically, called Tragulidae.