What is the difference between mule deer and whitetail deer

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These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. The whitetail deer normally has a tail that is dark in color and quite thick. It has a narrow patch of bright white beneath this. Whitetail deer usually have reddish-brown fur. As mentioned in the previous section, though, their fur does become a bit grayish during the winter months. Whitetail deer vary significantly in size and usually weigh between about 90 to pounds.

Size also generally depends on where the deer is located. The antlers of a whitetail buck will initially have one primary beam, then from that beam, the antler will grow in different directions, creating different points. Whitetail deer antlers generally shed in January or February. Whitetail deer have a higher birth rate than mule deer. Female whitetail deer can breed as young as six months old.

Whitetail deer mate between late November and early December. The gestation period for whitetail deer lasts six and a half months. Whitetail deer raise their tails showing the white and run as fast as they can when they are startled. While whitetail deer are more skittish than mule deer when humans are around, they can be surprisingly aggressive. While there are differences between Mule Deer and Whitetail Deer, there are also plenty of similarities.

Mule Deer vs Whitetail Deer. Sometimes male whitetail deer can weigh over pounds. Mule deer are larger than whitetail deer, usually weighing between and pounds. In some areas, including northern regions, bucks can be as heavy as pounds Coloring Whitetail deer tails are usually thick and dark in color, with a narrow bright white patch beneath it. When they sense danger, whitetail deer lift their tails, exposing the patch as they run away.

Whitetail deer have reddish-brown fur that turns grey in the winter months. Both tails can have black tips, so the primary characteristic that differentiates the species is tail shape.

Fawns Whitetail and muley fawns are almost identical for the first few months of their life. At that point, their tails should be more defined, as well as how they run. Despite this giant disparity in the age of each species, these two deer are closely linked to one another. Whitetail deer were a creature of warmer climates. They expanded their range from their original habitat in what is now the southeastern United States, across the southern portion of the country below the ice sheet towards California.

Here, they mingled with blacktail deer whose ancestors migrated from southeast Alaska, south down the Pacific coast during the ice age. Over a period of hundreds, possibly thousands of years and generation after generation of hybridization, mule deer emerged as a new deer species. As the ice age ended and the glaciers receded northwards, mule deer took advantage of new available habitat, habitat for which they were specially adapted.

Freed from severe competition and predation, the two opportunists species multiplied, radiated, and hybridized. This book is a fascinating, in-depth read for anyone interested in deer found around the globe. Meanwhile, the overall range of mule deer is smaller and their numbers significantly lower. Whitetails are now found in nearly all of the continental United States. California and Nevada are the exceptions for the time being, but whitetails are constantly expanding their range into new areas.

Southward, whitetails extend into Mexico and the tropical jungles of Central and South America. In the U. We have more whitetails now, by far, than at the time of European contact. The largest concentration of mule deer populations tend to fall along either side of the Continental Divide, with smaller numbers extending into the central plains.

Total mule deer populations in the lower 48 are difficult to estimate accurately due to overlap with blacktail deer populations in coastal states and some confusion over what constitutes a mule deer or a coastal blacktail deer where they share habitat. Colorado has the largest population of mule deer with over , animals. Whitetails can get by just about anywhere. They are generalists capable of surviving in a variety of habitats from swamps to forests, and plains to mountains.

Agriculture and forest thinning have been a boon to whitetails. Riparian corridors and young forests adjacent to crop fields such as corn, wheat, and soybeans are some of the most productive whitetail habitat.

Unlike whitetails that have thrived because of increased human alteration of the landscape, mule deer do best where humans have had the least amount of impact on their habitat. A whitetail can easily live its entire life in a single square mile.

Mule deer often summer in high elevation alpine habitat above the treeline where the richest food sources are found, but because snow levels are unmanageable during winter, mule deer migrate downhill to river valleys and low elevation sagebrush habitat where food is accessible. The distance between those two points may be well over one hundred miles.

In fact, it was recently discovered mule deer migrate farther than any other land animal in the lower Mule deer and whitetails are both primarily browsers as opposed to grazers, like elk. Both species will eat hundreds of different types of plants. In the fall and winter, whitetails feed on waste grain, man-made food plots, acorns and young saplings, while mule deer prefer mountain mahogany, aspen shoots, and sagebrush.

Like a lot of big game animals, mule deer and whitetails are crepuscular , meaning they most actively feed and travel near dawn and dusk. In the middle of the day they bed down to rest and chew their cud. Most deer may look the same to the untrained eye, but whitetail and mule deer have some striking differences. Though they share a lot of similarities, you can notice plenty of minute differences in their appearance, their behavior, and the geographic locations they occupy.

So here I will dive into everything different between these two species so that you can quickly identify them and become a better hunter. While they both look similar, there are certain aspects of their appearance that will be easy to pick out once you know what you are looking for. One of the telltale differences between the two is their tail… see what I did there?

Another indication is their coat. Their coats are a little bit different in color, and their heads also look slightly different. Coat color is not a signal you can always use right away. Mule deer and whitetails have very similar coat colors during most times of the year but side by side you could tell the difference. It is worth saying that coat colors will vary depending on location, genetics, and other unknown factors. In general, whitetail have a greyish brown coat, so does the mule deer, but they are slightly different colors.

The whitetail deer has more of a reddish hue to its coat. And during the summer whitetail shed their fall coats in favor of a lighter, even redder, summer coat. This color is notably different from mule deer. The head of a mule deer and whitetail are very different when you look at them in detail. The coloration on the face is notably different, as well as the ears. Mule deer and whitetail deer also grow their antlers differently. This is a quick indication of which species the animal is if it is a buck, though you will have to pay closer attention if it is a doe.

Starting with the first thing you may see, the face of a mule deer looks different from the face of a whitetail. Mule deer have a white patch on their face that goes all the way down to its nose and down the neck. Mule deer also have a dark forehead. Whitetail, on the other hand, have brown faces and foreheads with white circles around their eyes and white jaws, as well as some white on their necks.

Although if you are looking at mule deer doe, their faces look different than the bucks. Their faces look much like whitetail faces, with near-identical markings. Except the mule deer doe has a lighter face. The ears are the next giveaway, especially if you are looking at a doe.

Mule deer have much larger ears than their whitetail cousins. I think it mostly has to do with the habitat that they live in. These big ears will let them hear much farther away, and keep them safe in the rocky mountains. The ears of a mule deer are where they get their name from as well. Another key aspect of each species are their antlers.

Generally, mule deer have larger antlers than whitetail do. Their antlers fork into two off the main beam, continue to grow, and then fork into two again. Whitetail grow their antlers very differently. They have a single main beam that all other points grow from.

The resulting racks from each of these deer are very different.