whitetail/mule deer?

[pznuts]

For you guys that live where you have both, are there ever crosses between the two deer? Are they even able to cross breed? Just wondering.

[centaur]

We have both, but I have never seen a deer that I could say was a hybrid. According to wildlife biologists, the cross is very rare in the wild, but possible.

[Night Wing]

This is not scientific, but in west Texas, we have both whitetail and mule deer. I do think every once in a while, the two species interbreed.

Many years ago, I shot a large deer with the body size and hair coloring close to a mule deer, but with a whitetail gray colored rack. The buck deer was arrowed in Sanderson, Texas which is near the Mexican border.

In the photo below, the gray colored rack is on the left. The very dark colored rack on the right is a whitetail.

     

[Iowabowhunter]

I like that bow rack!

[snakebit40]

I've seen cross breading in my area. I mostly see whitetail bucks chasing mule deer doe. Whitetails seem to be more aggressive.

[Kamm1004]

whitetail are more agressive breeders thats for sure. I haven't seen it, but hear it happens. We have both here in CO, but they seem to segregate pretty well. Problem is a hybrid is sterile just like a beefalo or a liger or any other hybrid so that could affect your herd if it started happening in your area. If you ever question one, i'd make it a shooter just to be sure.

[gringol]

I used to live and hunt in SE Washington, and the Snake River breaks are full of whitetails and mule deer.  They seem to mingle quite a bit, you can hunt both species from the same blind on the same day, but I never saw one that looked like a hybrid.  I hear it's possible, but so is the existance of sasquatch....

[Night Wing]

Originally posted by Iowabowhunter:
I like that bow rack!

It's a commercially made bow rack from Craft Wood Racks. They have lots of different models for us guys who are not into wood working....or have two left thumbs.      

 http://www.craftwoodracks.com/Pages/default.aspx

[Gufunk]

We have what we call bench legs(because they have very short legs) which are cross between a muley and a blacktail.

[Glunt]

We have overlap WT MD here and I've never seen one alive that I for sure could identify, but hybrids do occur here.  I read that the indicator is the size of the metatarsal gland.  Whitetails are really short, muleys are long (4"), and hybrids will be about 2".

[AKCrazyhorse]

when I lived in Wyoming and was buddies with the local Game Warden, every couple years he'd tell me about a hybrid that a hunter had killed.  It happens more often between muley and blacktails where they overlap because the muley and the blacktail are genetically more similar.  Offspring of the union are still sterile I believe.

[bowslinger]

We hae both whitetail and mule deer in central and western Nebraska.  I have taken a whitetail buck in northwest Nebraska that had the body shape and colorings of a whitetail, but a very gray rack which is much darker than whiteatials in the same area.  It has the smallest brow tines of any whitetail rack I have seen, and had black hairs on the edges of the tail.  I have had several people ask me if the rack was from a mule deer when they see it.  I am not sure if it happens often, but from what our state biologists tell me, it does happen.

[pznuts]

Thanks guys.