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How does a reindeer see what a human cannot?

Close your eyes and imagine: you are standing in a white snowy tundra. Everything around is equally white. How do you find food under the snow? How do you see a wolf sneaking up on you? It is almost impossible for a human. But a reindeer sees where we are blind.

Its eyes catch ultraviolet light—the same light that tans our skin in the summer. We can’t see it, but the deer can. In this light, the snow sparkles bright blue, and the lichen the deer eats looks dark and conspicuous. Wolf urine also glows in ultraviolet light! So the predator can’t hide.

Now look at the hooves. In the summer they are soft and wide, like pillows — so as not to fall into the swamp. And in the winter the edges of the hooves harden and turn into real snowshoes! Moreover, the edge of the hoof is sharp as a blade — with it the deer rakes the snow and gets lichen even from under a 50-centimeter snowdrift.

Each deer runs up to 5,000 kilometers a year — that's like from Kyiv to Africa! And its fur has hollow hairs filled with air, so the deer almost never drowns in water or freezes.

The people of the North — the Sami, the Nenets, the Chukchi — have lived alongside reindeer for thousands of years. Without these animals, it would be impossible to survive in the tundra. And Santa Claus, by the way, did not choose his helpers by chance. Who else can see the way in the polar night and not get lost?