Black-tailed deer

Description:

According to Wikipedia, the black-tailed deer is a species, virtually all recent authorities maintain it as a subspecies of the mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus). Strictly speaking, the black-tailed deer group consists of two subspecies, as it also includes O. h. sitkensis (Sitka black-tailed deer). The black-tailed deer group and the mule deer group (sensu stricto) hybridize, and the mule deer appears to have evolved from the black-tailed deer. Despite this, the mtDNA of the white-tailed deer and mule deer are similar, but differ from that of the black-tailed deer. This may be the result of introgression, although hybrids between the mule deer and white-tailed deer are rare in the wild (apparently more common locally in West Texas), and the hybrid survival rate is low even in captivity.

Habitat:

Black-tailed deer once lived at least as far east as Wyoming. In Francis Parkman's The Oregon Trail, an eyewitness account of his 1846 trek across the early West, while within a two-day ride from Fort Laramie, Parkman writes of shooting what he believes to be an elk, only to discover he has killed a black-tailed deer. The black-tailed deer is currently common in northern California, western Oregon, Washington, in coastal and interior British Columbia, and north into the Alaskan panhandle. It is a popular game animal.

Notes:

This group of 4 was grazing and jumping around on a grassy pasture in the Santa Monica mountains !