Welcome to our first annual ViralNova Presents: 25 Days Of Creepy Christmas special section! Every day, from December 1st to December 25th, we’re posting a new Christmas-themed article guaranteed to get you in the creepy holiday spirit.
You can’t have Santa Claus without his team of flying reindeer on Christmas. Without them, there’s no way that Santa could (allegedly) travel around the world and deliver millions of presents on Christmas Eve. While people are familiar with Santa’s flying reindeer, they typically don’t know the finer details of these sleigh guardians. For instance, did you know that reindeer are female? Mind-blowing, right? But there’s more…
1.) They get around.
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Wild reindeer are some of the most prolific travelers in the world. A herd of reindeer will travel up to an average of 3,000 miles every year. They do this in search of food for the long, cold winter.
2.) Reindeer antlers are spray painted in Finland.
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Reindeer often cause traffic accidents in parts of Finland. To solve this problem, the Finnish government spray paints the antlers of reindeer with reflective paint. The result protects drivers, but it also looks a bit bizarre.
3.) Those antlers are real special.
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Reindeer are one of the only species on the planet where both sexes grow antlers. Males and females typically lose their antlers at different times during the year. Not only do both sexes grow antlers, but antlers look so strange when they first develop. The red material pictured above is called velvet, and helps supply blood and nutrients to antlers while they grow. Velvet then falls off during later stages of development. It looks gross, but it’s perfectly natural.
4.) They like to get high.
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According to one scientist, reindeer will occasionally seek out psychedelic mushrooms and eat them as a way to alleviate boredom in the long winter months. If that’s not weird enough, the same researcher also says that some herders used to drink reindeer urine as a way of trying to get high.
5.) They have their own unit of measurement.
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The reindeer and people in Northern Finland have their own unit of measurement called a “poronkusema.” It was invented by the Sami people of the region, and is the distance a reindeer can travel before needing to urinate.
6.) They can see ultraviolet light.
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Reindeer have notoriously good eyesight. They see light wavelengths up to 320nm (humans can only see up to 400nm). This extra boost in the ultraviolet range allows reindeer to see things more clearly in the harsh, blinding white of the snowy tundra.
7.) They make pretty good police officers.
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Some police officers in parts of Finland have reindeer partners, much like police dogs here in the United States. (I think I smell a buddy cop movie.)
8.) Reindeer are tasty.
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Tribal humans throughout history in the northern parts of the world depended on hunting reindeer for their survival, particularly in what is today Canada, and Scandinavia. This tradition of hunting and eating reindeer still exists in many parts of the world.
9.) Santa’s reindeer are probably female.
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It’s possible that Santa’s reindeer are actually female due to the time of year that most reindeer shed their antlers. Older male reindeer tend to lose their antlers around December, which makes it a pretty safe bet that the team pulling Santa’s sleigh is using girl power.
Make sure to catch up with the rest of our ViralNova Presents: 25 Days Of Creepy Christmas special section by clicking here.
