Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

White­tail deer in­habit most of south­ern Canada and all of the main­land United States ex­cept two or three states in the west. Their range reaches through­out Cen­tral Amer­ica to Bo­livia.

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • native
• neotropical
  • native

Habi­tat

White­tail deer are able to sur­vive in a va­ri­ety of ter­res­trial habi­tats, from the big woods of north­ern Maine to the deep saw grass and ham­mock swamps of Florida. They also in­habit farm­lands, brushy areas and such des­o­late areas of the west such as the cac­tus and thorn­brush deserts of south­ern Texas and Mex­ico. Ideal white­tail deer habi­tat would con­tain dense thick­ets (in which to hide and move about) and edges (which fur­nish food).

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• tropical

• Terrestrial Biomes
• chaparral
• forest
• rainforest
• scrub forest

• Wetlands
• swamp

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Head and body length is 150 to 200 cm, tail length is 10 to 28 cm, and height at the shoul­ders is be­tween 80 and 100 cm.

Odocoileus vir­gini­anus dor­sal col­oration dif­fers in shad­ing lo­cally, sea­son­ally, and among sub­species; how­ever in gen­eral it is grayer in the win­ter and red­der in the sum­mer. White fur is lo­cated in a band be­hind the nose, in cir­cles around the eyes, in­side the ears, over the chin and throat, on the upper in­sides of the legs and be­neath the tail. White­tail deer have scent glands be­tween the two parts of the hoof on all four feet, metatarsal glands on the out­side of each hind leg, and a larger tarsal gland on the in­side of each hind leg at the hock. Scent from these glands is used for in­traspecies com­mu­ni­ca­tion and se­cre­tions be­come es­pe­cially strong dur­ing the rut­ting sea­son. Males pos­sess antlers which are shed from Jan­u­ary to March and grow out again in April or May, los­ing their vel­vet in Au­gust or Sep­tem­ber. At birth, fawns are spot­ted with white in col­oration and weight be­tween 1.5 and 2.5 kg. Their coats be­come gray­ish lose their spots by their first win­ter. White­tail deer have good eye­sight and acute hear­ing, but de­pend mainly on their sense of smell to de­tect dan­ger.

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• homoiothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• male larger
• ornamentation

• Range mass

  57.0 to 137.0 kg

  125.55 to 301.76 lb

• Range length

  160.0 to 220.0 cm

  62.99 to 86.61 in

• Average basal metabolic rate

  123.447 W

  AnAge

Re­pro­duc­tion

• Mating System
• polygynous

Most white­tail deer (par­tic­u­larly males) mate in their sec­ond year, al­though some fe­males oc­ca­sion­ally mate as young as seven months. Bucks are polyg­a­mous al­though they may form an at­tach­ment and stay with a sin­gle doe for sev­eral days or even weeks until she reaches oestrus. Does are sea­son­ally polye­strous and usu­ally come into heat in No­vem­ber for a short twenty-four hour pe­riod. If a doe is not mated, a sec­ond es­trus oc­curs ap­prox­i­mately 28 days later. Mat­ing oc­curs from Oc­to­ber to De­cem­ber and ges­ta­tion is ap­prox­i­mately 6 and a half months. In her first year of breed­ing, a fe­male gen­er­ally has one fawn, but 2 per lit­ter (oc­ca­sion­ally 3 or 4) are born in sub­se­quent years. Fawns are able to walk at birth and nib­ble on veg­e­ta­tion only a few days later.

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• fertilization
• viviparous

• Breeding interval

  White-tailed deer breed once yearly.

• Breeding season

  Breeding occurs from October to December, fawns are born in the spring.

• Range number of offspring

  1.0 to 3.0

• Average number of offspring

  2

  AnAge

• Average gestation period

  6.5 months

• Average gestation period

  198 days

  AnAge

• Range weaning age

  8.0 to 10.0 weeks

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  2.0 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)
  Sex: female

  309 days

  AnAge

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  2.0 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)
  Sex: male

  417 days

  AnAge

White-tailed fe­males are very pro­tec­tive of their ba­bies. When look­ing for food, fe­males leave their off­spring in a hid­ing place for about four hours at a time. While wait­ing for their mother to re­turn, fawns lay flat on the ground with their necks out­stretched, well cam­ou­flaged against the for­est floor. Fawns begin to fol­low their mother on her for­ag­ing trips once they are about 4 weeks old and are fully ru­mi­nant at two months old. White-tailed deer fawns are nursed for 8 to 10 weeks be­fore they are weaned. Young males leave their mother after one year but young fe­males often stay with their mother for two years.

• Parental Investment
• precocial
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-independence
  • protecting
    • female
• post-independence association with parents

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Most white-tailed deer live about 2 to 3 years. Max­i­mum life span in the wild is 20 years but few live past 10 years old.

• Typical lifespan
  Status: wild

  10.0 (high) years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  2.0 years

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  16.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  23.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Be­hav­ior

White­tail deer are the most ner­vous and shy of our deer. They wave their tails char­ac­ter­is­ti­cally from side to side when they are star­tled and flee­ing. They are ex­tremely agile and may bound at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour through tan­gled ter­rain in a for­est. White­tail deer are also good swim­mers and often enter large streams and lakes to es­cape preda­tors or in­sects or to visit is­lands. Their home ranges are gen­er­ally small, often a square kilo­me­ter or less. White­tail deer do not mi­grate to a win­ter range but yard up in their own ter­ri­to­ries dur­ing heavy snow. They are no­to­ri­ous for con­tin­u­ally using the same path­ways when for­ag­ing, but will not bed down dur­ing the day in areas that they have used pre­vi­ously.

White­tail deer are gen­er­ally con­sid­ered soli­tary, es­pe­cially in sum­mer. The basic so­cial unit is a fe­male and her fawns, al­though does have been ob­served to graze to­gether in herds of up to hun­dreds of in­di­vid­u­als. Fe­males gen­er­ally fol­low their moth­ers for about two years, but males leave the group within the first year. Bucks may form tran­sient groups of 2-4 in the sum­mer, but these dis­band prior to the mat­ing sea­son. Males begin rut­ting as early as Sep­tem­ber, and at this point be­come en­tirely pre­oc­cu­pied with ob­tain­ing mat­ings. They do not guard harems (as with elk) but rather fight each other in­di­vid­u­ally, clash­ing antlers to gain ac­cess to a par­tic­u­lar fe­male.

White­tail does are painstak­ingly care­ful to keep their off­spring hid­den from preda­tors. When for­ag­ing, fe­males leave their off­spring in dense veg­e­ta­tion for about four hours at a time. While wait­ing for the fe­male to re­turn, fawns lay flat on the ground with their necks out­stretched, well cam­ou­flaged against the for­est floor. Fawns with­hold their feces and urine until the mother ar­rives, at which point she in­gests what­ever the fawn voids to deny preda­tors any sign of the fawn.

White­tail deer are not es­pe­cially vocal, al­though young fawns bleat on oc­ca­sion. In­jured deer utter a star­tlingly loud "blatt" or bawl. Whis­tles or snorts of dis­turbed white­tails are the most com­monly heard sounds.

• Key Behaviors
• cursorial
• terricolous
• crepuscular
• motile
• sedentary
• social
• dominance hierarchies

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

White-tailed deer have scent glands be­tween the two parts of the hoof on all four feet, out­side of each hind leg, and on the in­side of each hind leg. Scent from these glands is used to com­mu­ni­cate with other deer and se­cre­tions be­come es­pe­cially strong dur­ing the mat­ing sea­son.

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.

• Communication Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

• Other Communication Modes
• pheromones
• scent marks

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

White­tail deer feed on a va­ri­ety of veg­e­ta­tion, de­pend­ing on what is avail­able in their habi­tat. In east­ern forests, buds and twigs of maple, sas­safras, poplar, aspen and birch (to name a few) are con­sumed, as well as many shrubs. In desert areas, plants such as hua­jillo brush, yucca, prickly pear cac­tus, comal, ratama and var­i­ous tough shrubs may be the main com­po­nents of a white­tail's diet. Conifers are often uti­lized in win­ter when other foods are scarce. White­tail deer are cre­pus­cu­lar, feed­ing mainly from be­fore dawn until sev­eral hours after, and again from late af­ter­noon until dusk.

• Primary Diet
• herbivore

Pre­da­tion

White-tailed deer have good eye­sight and acute hear­ing, but de­pend mainly on their sense of smell to de­tect dan­ger and their abil­ity to run and bound quickly through dense veg­e­ta­tion to es­cape dan­ger. White-tailed deer are preyed on by large preda­tors such as hu­mans, wolves, moun­tain lions, bears, jaguars, and coy­otes.

• Known Predators

  • humans (Homo sapiens)
  • gray wolves (Canis lupus)
  • mountain lions (Puma concolor)
  • coyotes (Canis latrans)
  • bears (Ursidae)
  • jaguars (Panthera onca)

Ecosys­tem Roles

White-tailed deer can greatly in­flu­ence the com­po­si­tion of plant com­mu­ni­ties through their graz­ing, es­pe­cially where they are abun­dant. In se­vere win­ters white-tailed deer can be re­spon­si­ble for girdling and killing large num­bers of trees. White-tailed deer are also im­por­tant prey an­i­mals for a num­ber of large preda­tors.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

White­tail deer are com­monly hunted for meat and sport. Early set­tlers and Na­tive Amer­i­cans also uti­lized white­tail deer hides to make buck­skin leather. White­tail heads are also com­monly mounted on the walls of lodges and other places of out­door recre­ation.

• Positive Impacts
• food

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

White­tail deer are de­struc­tive to crops, veg­etable gar­dens, fruit trees, and or­na­men­tal plants where their ranges over­lap with human habi­ta­tion. When their num­bers be­come too high, white­tail deer can cause se­ri­ous dam­age to for­est veg­e­ta­tion through over­brows­ing. They are in­volved in ac­ci­dents with cars, often re­sult­ing in se­ri­ous in­jury to the human oc­cu­pants of the ve­hi­cles.

White­tail deer are im­por­tant as vec­tors dis­ease be­cause they serve as hosts to the ticks which carry the bac­te­ria re­spon­si­ble Lyme dis­ease. This has be­come an in­creas­ingly com­mon dis­ease in cer­tain parts of the United States, es­pe­cially the north­east­ern states.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

White­tail deer are ex­tremely com­mon through­out their ranges and are the most nu­mer­ous of the large North Amer­i­can mam­mals. Pre­cise es­ti­mates of their num­bers have not been made, but there are prob­a­bly some­where be­tween 8 and 15 mil­lion on this con­ti­nent. Al­though their pop­u­la­tions were dec­i­mated to the point of ex­tinc­tion in many areas at the turn of the cen­tury (due to over­hunt­ing), they have re­cently reached their high­est num­bers due to the im­prove­ment of their habi­tat by the cut­ting of cli­max forests, pro­vid­ing them with a greater amount of brush and shrubs on which to for­age.

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Tanya Dewey (au­thor, ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web, (au­thor).

Ref­er­ences

Ban­field, A.W.F. 1974. The Mam­mals of Canada. Uni­ver­sity of Toronto Press, Toronto.

Darym­ple, B.W. 1985. North Amer­i­can Big-Game An­i­mals. Out­door Life Books, New York.

Nowak, R.M. and J.L Par­adiso. 1983. Walker's Mam­mals of the World. 4th edi­tion. John Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity Press, Bal­ti­more, MD.

Geist, V. 1979. Hoofed mam­mals. In: Wild An­i­mals of North Amer­ica. Na­tional Ge­o­graphic So­ci­ety, Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

"White-tail World.​Com" (On-line). Ac­cessed May, 2001 at http://​www.​kerrlake.​com/​deer/​index.​htm.

Smith, P. 1991. Odocoileus vir­gini­anus. Mam­malian Species, 388: 1-13.