White-tailed Deer

Description:

The White-tailed Deer is distinguished from the Mule Deer by the smaller size of its ears, the color of its tail, and most strikingly, by antler shape. In Whitetails, the main beam of the antlers grows forward rather than upwards, and each tine develops as its own separate branch rather than being split into a forked pair. The two species also run differently when they are alarmed. Mule Deer stot, a boing-boing-boing motion in which all four feet leave and hit the ground with each bound, whereas White-tailed Deer spring forward, pushing off with their hind legs and landing on their front feet. Today White-tails are very widespread in North America: there may be as many as 15 million in the United States. These Deer are adaptable browsers, feeding on leaves, twigs, shoots, acorns, berries, and seeds, and they also graze on grasses and herbs. In areas where they live alongside Mule Deer, the species naturally separate ecologically, the Whitetails staying closer to moist streams and bottomlands, the Mule Deer preferring drier, upland places.

Habitat:

White-tailed deer occupy a well defined home range, but they are not territorial. Home range are influenced by age, sex, density, social interactions, latitude, season and habitat characteristics. Size of home ranges varies inversely with density and vegetative cover. Annual home range averages 59- 520 ha (Marchinton and Hirth 1984). In northeastern Mexico, O. v. texanus home range averages 193 ha for females, and 234 ha for males in a xerophyllous brushland (Bello et al.2004), and O. v. sinaloae in a tropical dry forest in the Pacific Coast of Mexico had a home range of 34 ha during the wet season (Sánchez Rojas et al.1994).

Notes:

White-tailed deer produce several types of vocalizations such as grunts, wheezes, and bleats. These vocalizations, along with other sounds and postures, are used for communication (Smith, 1991). Injured deer utter a startlingly loud "blatt" or bawl. Whistles or snorts of disturbed white-tailed deer are the most commonly heard sounds.