The Cervidae are distributed all over Europe, Asia, Northern Africa and America, but are unknown in Africa south of the Sahara.

While Gelocus exhibits a marked approximation to the Tragulidae, Prodremotherium comes nearer to the Cervidae, of which it not improbably indicates the ancestral type.

Of the ruminants, Brazil has only four or five species of Cervidae, which are likewise common to other countries of South America.