'Vampire' Deer?! 5 South Korean Animals You May See at the 2018 Winter Olympics

A lizard with no lungs, a deer with vampire fangs and a little black bird carrying around human baby teeth in its beak all walk into a country.

This is no joke set-up — this is a real snapshot of the eccentric biodiversity of South Korea (well, except maybe for the baby teeth thing… more on that in a minute).

As the 2018 Winter Games unfold in Pyeongchang, can the viewing public count on any surprise animal cameos akin to the 30 or 40 dog-size rodents called capybaras that invaded the golf links during the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro? Live Science investigated the funkiest fauna of the Korean Peninsula and compiled this list of the likeliest suspects.

Musk deer

Any Olympians who wander too far into the forested hills outside Pyeongchang might come home with horror stories about the smelly, vampire-fanged denizens of the woods. Male Siberian musk deer (Moschus moschiferus) may look fierce with their saber teeth, but they're actually harmless herbivores. "The males have these long sabers to fight each other during the mating season," Jack Tseng, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History, previously told Live Science.

In fact, musk deer, which are native to mountainous habitats around Asia and Russia, have far more to fear from humans than the other way around: Male deer are routinely poached for their eponymous scent glands, which can be worth nearly $20,455 per pound ($45,000 per kilogram) on the black market, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). In 2016, South Korean researchers started work on cloning the musk deer to save the species from extinction.

Korean magpie

The Korean magpie (Pica pica sericea) is a stocky, black, crow-like bird with a white belly and blue-striped wings. Korean magpies are popular enough in South Korea to land a spot on the Google Doodle inaugurating this year's Winter Games — but these little black birds have had a foothold in culture for a lot longer than Google has been around. Magpies are a common symbol of luck in Korean folklore, and they sometimes even fill in for the tooth fairy. Some Korean children reportedly learn to throw their baby teeth onto the roofs of their homes so that a magpie will fly off with the discarded chompers and bring back healthy new ones in their place.

Despite their folkloric reputation, magpies probably don't take kindly to repeated projectile tooth attacks. According to a 2011 study, Korean magpies can learn to recognize individual human faces and remember which individuals have posed a threat to the safety of their nests.

White-naped crane

 White-naped cranes (Antigone vipio) are elegant, endangered and apt to spend winter in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea. In other words, they're the perfect symbol of peace on the Korean Peninsula.

The species takes its name from the white stripe running down the back of its neck, but it might be more striking for the vivid red patches around its eyes. According to the International Crane Foundation, white-naped cranes breed primarily in northeastern China and Mongolia, but several hundred birds fly south to the Korean DMZ every winter. (Thousands of others continue on to one of several artificial feeding stations in Japan.) This Korean stopover may be critical to the species' survival, the IUCN says. Due to the ongoing loss of their wetland breeding grounds to human activities, the cranes are listed as vulnerable by the IUCN.

Wild boar

You might not expect the king of the mountain predators to oink, but according to reports from the Seoul Metropolitan Fire and Disaster Headquarters, wild boars (Sus scrofa) are "now at the top of the food chain in Korea."

The scruffy swine spend most of their time in mountain ecosystems, but in recent years, they have become increasingly comfortable venturing down into cities. Wild-boar sightings in Seoul, for example, have increased 11-fold, from 56 city sightings in 2012 to 623 in 2016, the Seoul Metropolitan Fire and Disaster Headquarters said, mostly occurring between September and December, when there is less food available in the hills. As natural predators like tigers have become extinct from Korea, boars thrive — and that's making human-boar interactions more common than ever.

Lungless salamander

 Meanwhile, lurking under a nearby rock, a lungless salamander breathes through its skin. The Korean crevice salamander (Karsenia koreana) was only discovered in 2003, and scientists still don't know much about it. The critter mostly keeps to itself underneath rocks in limestone forests and bears a lot of similarities to the North American lungless salamander family, also called Plethodontidae, which comprises most of the world's salamander species. So far, K. koreana is the only lungless salamander to have been detected in Asia, but it was probably once just one among many others that are now extinct, researchers believe.

"The habitats in Asia are appropriate for these animals — so it is strange that they became extinct there and not here," David Wake, a biologist and salamander expert at the University of California, Berkeley, previously told Live Science.

In other words: Amphibian enthusiasts hoping to see more lungless salamanders on the Korean Peninsula probably shouldn't hold their breath.

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“Vampire Deer” Revisited

Looks can certainly be deceiving. This Asian deer may seem out for blood and “built for the kill” with its long canines. Reality, however, offers a totally different perspective as the animal is largely shy and harmless. Unless you are some leaves of grass, of course.

Because of its looks, this 4-legged creature has been labeled the Christmas “devil deer” and has in fact been branded as the reindeer that Krampus would ride. Krampus, for the uninitiated, is the demonic counterpart of St. Nicholas. And many would agree, as the fangs clearly protruding at the sides of its mouth would make it look like a “vampire” deer. Some naughty creature you got there. But yes, a closer look would reveal otherwise. As the nasty creature every kid may fear is more docile than it looks. And definitely fascinating in its own right.

The Evolution of the “Fanged deer”

The term “Fanged deer” does not refer to one specie of deer rather it is a loose term that applies to a slew of male deers with visible canines. This includes the muntjac, tufted deer, water deer and the musk deer.

But tusks and horns commonly identified with the dark side may not be an unfamiliar feature with deers. As Zoo Atlanta's carnivore keeper, Jen Webb divulged, "The ancestors of all deer were small and had tusks and antlers." Currently, she is the keeper of the American Zoological Association’s muntjak studbook, making her "responsible for the pedigree, geneology, and geographic history of the species' population” in her locality.

Further, Webb explained that in the process of evolution, taller deer species "grew larger antlers and lost the tusks, while smaller deer retained the tusks but kept small antlers."

Over time, four distinct species bore these “creepy” features.

These are:

Muntjacs

Muntjacs include 12 species of deer endemic to the South Asian region. What would strike you most about them is that they have both antlers and tusks handed down from one generation to the next thru their ancestors.

If you expect them to be feisty, then you could never be wrong. These creatures – though fanged – are of diminutive size. Added to that they are essentially shy and would flee in such a short notice.

Aside from differences in habitat, one specie could vary in appearance and behavior to the other.Classic example: the Reeve’s muntjac found in Zoo Atlanta. Also nicknamed the Chinese muntjac, the animal can easily be identified with its sharp, abbreviated calls giving it the moniker “barking deer.”

Musk Deer

This one caught the headlines early last year as one Kashmir musk deer was seen in Afghanistan, a full 60 years after last visual as reported in the October issue of the Oryx journal.

According to Wildlife Conservation Society's Peter Zahler, co-author of the Oryx study, "Musk deer are less well known than other deer because they are secretive, shy, not terribly common, and are found primarily across temperate Asia, from the Himalayas of Afghanistan into southern Russia, which is generally a region of the world that is not well known to the public."

Now you may be wondering if the Musk Deer had anything to do with the Musk scent. Fact is, all but one of the seven species of this shy animal have been listed as endangered by none other than the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The poor animal has been the subject of many hunts for its musk gland, which according to the  Wildlife Conservation Society is "considered more valuable by weight than gold, fetching as much as $45,000/kilo on the black market.”

Knowing that would make you wish this animal had a temper of a tiger.

Tufted Deer

The animal has been so named because of its very small antlers largely hidden from view by its tufts of hair – reason for its name. Yet you can’t mistake its prominent tusks. A specie called Elaphoduscephalophus is endemic to China and Myanmar (formerly Burma).

For deers, tusks serve a better function than antlers especially when these animals live in thick vegetation as Zahler explains: They're less likely to get tangled in brush than antlers are.

And these tusks may serve as an asset as male fanged deer utilize them as weapons to fight rivals. Arnold Cooke, one independent deer researcher from U.K., shares the save point of view saying, "it may be that visible tusk size is an asset that will cause a rival to back down and avoid a fight."

Chinese Water Deer

Though originally endemic to China and Korea, the Chinese water deermaybe a more familiar animal in the U.K. as wild populations have sprouted after the 20th century saw releases and escapes from zoos and parks, the British Deer Society affirms.

But don’t get too comfy as the breed is the rarest of the Britain’s six deer species. Primarily grazers, Cooke shares “the tusks are, to a degree, hinged in their sockets, and can be held back slightly when the animal is grazing."

What is striking is the animal has got "ears large and rounded, giving a 'teddy bear' like appearance," the British Deer Society declares.

Now, will all the shyness surrounding these so-called “devil deers” it seems Krampus may have to do some more searching to complete his line-up of menacing reindeers.

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The Vampire Deer

The Vampire Deer is a deer with  3inches long fangs! Also, I am sure nobody could blame you for accidently stabbing one through the heart with a wooden stake on a first encounter. Though, for the record, they are totally harmless and there is no record of one biting a person.

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