information:classification, structural:scholar_edition, stylistic:tone, quality:correction
Reclassification

In the mid-20th century, as definitions of "species" evolved, mammalogists in Europe and North America made all Rangifer species conspecific with R. tarandus, and synonymized most of the subspecies. Alexander William Francis Banfield 's often-cited A Revision of the Reindeer and Caribou, Genus Rangifer (1961), eliminated R. t. caboti (the Labrador caribou), R. t. osborni (Osborn's caribou — from British Columbia) and R. t. terranovae (the Newfoundland caribou) as invalid and included only barren-ground caribou, renamed as R. t. groenlandicus (formerly R. arcticus) and woodland caribou as R. t. caribou. However, Banfield made multiple errors, eliciting a scathing review by Ian McTaggart-Cowan in 1962. Most authorities continued to consider all or most subspecies valid; some were quite distinct. In his chapter in the authoritative 2005 reference work Mammal Species of the World, referenced by the American Society of Mammalogists, English zoologist Peter Grubb agreed with Valerius Geist, a specialist on large mammals, that these subspecies were valid (i.e., before the recent revision): In North America, R. t. caboti, R. t. caribou, R. t. dawsoni, R. t. groenlandicus, R. t. osborni, R. t. pearyi, and R. t. terranovae; and in Eurasia, R. t. tarandus, R. t. buskensis (called R. t. valentinae in Europe; see below), R. t. phylarchus, R. t. pearsoni, R. t. sibiricus and R. t. platyrhynchus. These subspecies were retained in the 2011 replacement work Handbook of the Mammals of the World Vol. 2: Hoofed Mammals. Most Russian authors also recognized R. t. angustirostris, a forest reindeer from east of Lake Baikal.

However, since 1991, many genetic studies have revealed deep divergence between modern tundra reindeer and woodland caribou. Geist (2007) and others continued arguing that the woodland caribou was incorrectly classified, noting that "true woodland caribou, the uniformly dark, small-maned type with the frontally emphasized, flat-beamed antlers", is "scattered thinly along the southern rim of North American caribou distribution". He affirms that the "true woodland caribou is very rare, in very great difficulties and requires the most urgent of attention."