Alternatively, they are known as the plesiometacarpal deer, due to having lost the parts of the second and fifth metacarpal bones closest to the foot (though retaining the parts away from the foot), distinct from the telemetacarpal deer of the Capreolinae (which have instead retained these parts of those metacarpals, while losing the parts away from the foot instead).

Nuclear DNA phylogeny after Heckeberg (2020)[7][8]Capreolinae Elaphodus (tufted deer) Muntiacus (muntjacs) Dama (Fallow deer) Elaphurus (Père David's deer) Cervus elaphus (red deer) Cervus nippon (sika deer) Cervus albirostris (Thorold's deer) Rusa unicolor (Sambar deer) Rusa timorensis (Javan rusa) Panolia/Rucervus eldii (Eld's deer) Rucervus duvaucelii (barasingha) Axis (chital, hog deer) Cervinae is suggested to have split from Capreolinae at least 13.8 million years ago based on the first appearance of Euprox, suggested to be a stem-group cervine in Europe at this time.

[9] Modern Cervinae first appeared during the Late Miocene in Eastern Asia, arriving in the Indian subcontinent and Europe during the Early Pilocene.

[1] The ancestor of Cervinae probably had a bifurcated antlers similar to muntjacs, with the complex antlers of Cervini evolving independently from those of Capreolinae.

[10] Cervinae radiated during the Early Pleistocene, becoming the dominant group of deer across Eurasia.