Rare Deer?

[jcabin]

I took my daughter for a walk yesterday, and saw what I've never seen before. It's not uncommon to see deer where I live. I'm in a gated community where the deer are just like neighbors, there's well over a hundred+ that live within my community. They don't run off when you get close, and will walk up to you if you have food for them.

So we're walking around this bend in the road when we come upon 2 deer chewing some grass on the side of the road. I noticed one of them had a light coat, the neck and shoulders looked almost white, but still had some of their orange/reddish hair color here and there. The eyes really caught my attention, they were a very very light blue, almost white. I didn't want to get too close as I did have my daughter, so I couldn't snap a picture of it.

I've never seen a deer with any eye color other than black..?

[DonM55]

Have seen albino with pink eyes.

[thefirstndsecond]

I have seen Albino with pink eyes

I guess Piball or Pinto deer

Also seen a 3 legged deer, birth defect. Hope a long.

You see many wondrous things in the woods.

[keystoneman 85]

Piebald Deer?
http://www.google.com/images?q=pieba...N&hl=en&tab=wi

[Devrbd]

[afrattner]

Yeah its rare, we get them over here.

Its genom stuff up

[Dredly]

yeah Piebald, not an Albino (white w/ pink eyes). they exist but aren't very common

[XD40coyote]

Interesting. Piebalds usually always have the normal brown eyes, but this one had the blue eyes of a lucistic, which is an all white deer that is not a true albino. Albinos have pink/red eyes. Did this deer have pink hooves and/or a pink nose?

A melanistic deer is probably the rarest, this is a deer with black fur. I have yet to see one as a taxidermist, but have seen some with a distinctive black stripe down the back of the neck, a few bucks with a small mane ( normal color), and several whitetail bucks with "whistlers" ( like tiny versions of an elk's ivories).

[jcabin]

It had a normal orange/reddish coat except it's shoulders and neck were very pale, almost white, and it had light blue, almost white eyes. Nose and hooves were normal as far as I could tell but I wasn't paying much attention to them.

[Paparock]

Rarest Whitetails Of All

"Melanistic" or "melanic" deer - so named because their bodies produce far too much of the hair, skin and retina pigment known as melanin - are definitely the rarest of the rare. While millions of whitetails have been harvested across the continent in modern times, only a token number of cases of melanism have been documented. In fact, it's safe to say that most whitetail hunters have never even heard of melanistic deer, much less seen one. For that matter, only a few research biologists ever have observed one in the flesh.