Bull. Inst. Zool., Academia Sinica 30(4): 341-344 (1991) SHORT NOTE TOOTH WEAR PATTERN IN FORMOSAN REEVES' MUNTJAC REEVES] MICRURUS) (~IUNT]ACUS KURTIS C. J. PEIl and YING W ANG2 Department of Forest Resource Management and Technology, National Ping-Tung Polytechnic Institute, Ping-Tung, Taiwan 91207, Republic of Chinal and Institute of Biology, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan 11718, Republic of China2 (Accepted January 25, 1991) Kurtis C. J. Pei and Ying Wang (1991) Tooth wear pattern in formosan Reeves' muntjac (Muntiacus reevesi micrurus). Bull. Inst. Zool., Academia Sinica 30(4): 341-344. The relationship between age and the mean crown height (MCR) of the first lower molars (FLM) for adult Formosan Reeves' muntjac (Muntiacus reevesi micrurus) was investigated. Two best fitted regressions, one linear and one cur vilinear, were calculated and the theoretical life-span, derived from the regressions, were 9 and 11 years· respectively. With a 50% confidence, the range of the MCR of the FLM for each age class up to 8 years old was prepared for field study. Key words: Formosan Reeves'muntjac, Tooth wear pattern. be reliable (H. L. Sheng, pers. comm.; T 0 gain insight into survivorship or Wang, 1989), an easily applied aging reproduction, a number of attempts have technique is still desirable for field study. been made to determine the age of adult In this study we investigated the muntjac. Van Bemmel (1952) adopted the change of the crown height of the first aging system prepared for the roe deer lower molar (FLM) with age for the (Capreolus capreolus) in his study of the Formosan Reeves' muntjac (M. reevesi Indian muntjac (l'vfuntiacus muntjak), which micrurus) using skulls collected from I-Lan, has been shown to under estimate the Taiwan. Hopefully, we could establish age of muntjac (Chapman et at., 1985). basic information for future study of More recently, Sheng and Wang (1976) muntjac aging in the field. and Sheng and Lu (1981) counted the cementum layers in the root of the first MATERIALS AND METHODS upper molar to determine the age for the Reeves' muntjac (M reevesi reevesi) and the Twenty-two skulls were collected for black muntjac (M crinifrons), respectively. the study (Table 1). The ages of these Though cementum layers may prove to skulls were determined by observing the 341