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WHITETAIL DEER
Odocoileus virginianus
GENERAL INFORMATION
The whitetail deer is one of the best known and easily recognized large mammals and can be found throughout North America. Other members of the deer family found in North America include the elk, moose, caribou, mule deer and blacktail deer. Just the mere mention of the name whitetail leads most of us to think about one of the deer's most recognizeable features---its large brown tail with its completely white underside. Many hunters and non-hunters alike have witnessed this graceful animal fleeting across an open field in long graceful bounds as it displayed the white underside of its tail held high in the air swaying from side to side as the deer retreated to safety.
ABOUT THE WHITETAIL DEER
The three most proclaimed physical charachteristics of a deer is it's eyes, ears and nose.Each of these sensory organs is used daily by the whitetail for a profusion of reasons including where to find its food sources, to locate and avoid danger and to seek out the opposite sex during the breeding season. Lets take a closer look at all of these organs, beginning with the eyes. A whitetails eyes contain more rods and cones------allowing for better night vision. A whitetails eye only needs 1/8th of the available light a humans eye needs to see in the dark! The white hair which lies directly under the eyes also help it see better at night. The hair reflects as much light that is available during low light situations. Unbelievably, whitetails can see at least 310 degrees of a full circle (360 degrees) and at least 50 degrees of the 310 can be seen with binocular vision.
They have evolved to detect motion and depth perception. The eyes of a deer have both monocular vision to each eye and binocular vision to the front, giving them a wide filed of view. Although for years it has been said that deer are colorblind, recently these findings are being disputed, saying that deer actually are able to see shades of color.
The whitetails ears are quite sensative and respond to unusual sounds immediately. Each ear has about 24 square inches of surface in which sounds are able to glance off of. They are constantly used in a radar-like fashion to aid them in determining if anything is peculiar or unfamiliar is occuring in their surroundings and, to monitor the whereabouts and the behavior of other animals that share their domain, especially predators. By closely observing how the whitetail holds its ears you will be able to tell what the deer is thinking and what it is about to do. Or get to be able to learn their "body languages".
Their sense of smell is their number one defense system. Each nostril is lined with epithelium, a membrane cellular tissue which is composed of mocous membranes and sensory nerve endings. Kept moist by the deer's tongue and the internal tissue itself, the epithelium of the nose can pick up odors much better. The nose also aids in defining exactly who is who individually- in the deer world.A whitetail also uses its nose not only to locate its food, but also to determine if it is going to be palatable enough to eat. Of course it is used ultimately to detect danger and to locate a receptive doe in estrous.
The whitetail deer is a large animal which varies quite a bit in size, depending on the particular subspecies and the region where it is found. The adult whitetail deer's weight averages from about 100 to 350 pounds. Mature males are generally larger than the females. The whitetail is an ungulate, or hoofed animal, with each foot ending in a cloven or two piece hoof. The under parts of the deer's body are white with a white patch on the throat and another smaller band of white around the nose. The upper body parts are colored reddish brown during the warmer months but in the fall, whitetail deer molt into their winter coats of dark, grayish brown. For several months of the year, male whitetail deer, known as bucks, are easily recognized by the presence of antlers on their head, which the females, known as does, lack. .
Deer Antler growth usually begins during the month of March or April, by August or early September, antlers are fully-grown. Deer antlers are among the fastest growing tissues known to man. Growing at an average of 1 to 2 inches per week or half an inch per day! Growing antlers are covered with a living tissue called velvet. During development, the deer's antlers are very delicate. This is the time when most antler damage or breakage occurs. Velvet is shed or rubbed off by the buck as he rubs saplings with his antlers. After the breeding season, bucks will shed their antlers. Antlers are usually shed in January or February. Antler shedding usually occurs earlier in northern states than southern states. A new pair of antlers will start growing in the spring.