Karen Berkenbile, age 11, of Hennessey, Oklahoma, for her question:

What is a caribou?

A few weeks ago, on Christmas Eve, many an excited child heard the patter of hooves on the roof    and identified the sound as the arrival of Santa Claus's reindeer. And anyone who knows what they look like could identify a caribou.
Santa's reindeer are domesticated caribou. But many pictures and models of the Christmas reindeer can be misleading. For example, the real animal does not look at all like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. The real animal is a large, shaggy deer. He is quite handsome and rather solemn. The hard working fellow is too busy to be cute or playful. His wild brother, the caribou, also is occupied with serious, strenuous toil. To make a living, he must cope with the hardships of the frozen north. And his story dates back to the Ice Ages.
As the last glaciers melted from Europe they left vast stretches of swamp and soggy soil. Plants soon came to thrive there and assorted animals from the south came to feed on the lush vegetation. Our wandering ancestors came to hunt the animals and among them were mankind's first artists. They drew their animal neighbors upon the walls of their caves and the animal they drew most often was the caribou, alias the reindeer. Those portraits, far more life like than Rudolph, still exist after 25,000 years.
Many of the animals stayed in Europe. But through the ages, generations of caribou herded north and still farther north. They finally made their homes inside and just outside the Arctic Circle. In the Old World, great herds wandered through Siberia and Finland, Greenland and the northern fringes of Norway and Sweden. In the New World, millions of caribou roamed Alaska and Canada. They visited Maine, Michigan and other American states.
Their numbers have been reduced, but smaller herds still roam the Far North. The caribou of the northern tundra scrape away the snow with their wide hooves dnd nibble the  low growing lichens and mosses. In August, they gather in a big herd and migrate hundreds of miles south over the treeless tundra. Some caribou stay all year in the northern Rockies where they feed on grasses and forest greenery.
The bull caribou wears a huge, high crowned spiked antlers. In most of the deer world, the fashionable female wears no antlers    but the female caribou lives far from the world of style. She has a thick, warm coat of brownish gray with a shaggy collar and more shaggy hair on her nose. And this lady deer does wear antlers. Even young caribou have antlers    brothers and sisters sprout their first spikes when only two months old.
In the fall, the mighty bull collects himself a family of maybe 30 wives. He becomes noisy and boisterous and at this season he may be dangerous to man. But his important battles are with other bulls who try to steal his wives. One by one he fights off his rivals, often to the death. In mid winter, all the caribou shed their antlers. New spikes begin to sprout in a week or so and by summer every caribou is wearing a full grown crown.