Wild deer at Nara Park, a popular tourist attraction in Nara, have a unique genotype different from those of other herds on the Kii Peninsula, demonstrating more than a thousand years of being protected as messengers of gods for a shrine boasting World Heritage status, a Japanese research group has said.
Collecting muscle tissue or blood samples of 294 Japanese sika deer in the prefectures of Nara, Wakayama, Mie and Kyoto between 2000 and 2016, the research team analyzed their mitochondrial DNA, which is passed from mother to child.
They found that the deer inhabiting the Nara Park area surrounding the Kasugataisha Shrine have a single haplotype, a set of DNA variations inherited together, which was not present in deer from other places, according to a recently published article.