So what if Rudolph can’t really fly? He and the herd have some truly amazing evolutionary adaptations that could inspire new treatments for human diseases

Brett Ryder

AS ANY young child knows, reindeer have a special superpower: they can fly. Or, at least, Rudolph and his eight sleigh-towing pals can. Reindeer first took to the skies in 1823, when Clement Clarke Moore published Twas the Night Before Christmas. He is said to have got his inspiration from the Sami people of northern Europe, whose shamans conjured up flying reindeer while in magic mushroom-induced trances.

Unfortunately, that’s all bunkum – even the bit about the Sami. But who needs fiction? Reindeer have real-world superpowers. The animals have evolved a whole range of amazing innovations that let them not just survive but thrive in the frigid Arctic. Their eyes change colour like living sunglasses, from gold in summer to blue in winter. They see the world in glorious ultraviolet. They can switch their body clocks on and off, produce lots of vitamin D even in limited sunlight and grow antlers up to a metre long in just a few months.

What’s more, we might be able to borrow some of those abilities. Discovering more about Rudolph could lead to new ways of tackling jet lag, insomnia and cancer, and even allow us to grow new limbs. Thanks to recent work revealing the genetic underpinnings of reindeer’s unusual traits, their superpowers could one day be ours.

Nearly 5 million reindeer roam the frozen north, from Alaska to Siberia and Greenland. The biggest group, containing about half a million animals, is the Taimyr herd of the Siberian tundra. Also known as caribou in North America, these lichen-eating ruminants are the only deer species to have been tamed by …