麋

Modern usage: 麋 almost always appears in the compound 麋鹿 (Père David's deer). The folk nickname 四不像 'four-not-alike' comes from the animal's mosaic appearance: antlers like a deer, hooves like an ox, face like a horse, tail like a donkey. Classical Chinese sometimes used 麋 loosely for elk or river-side deer in general, but in modern zoology it refers specifically to Elaphurus davidianus.

Père David's deer is one of biology's great rescue stories. Native to Chinese wetlands, the wild population was hunted out by the late Qing. The last imperial herd in the 南海子 Royal Hunting Park was destroyed during the floods and the Eight-Nation War of 1900. Only animals previously shipped to European parks survived; the species was reintroduced to China in 1985 from descendants of those European herds and now thrives in protected wetlands.