Mule deer VS. Whitetail

[Ace141]

Okay here is the dilemma..... I know what a Mule Deer is...I know what a whitetail is....BUT if you have a mule deer body with the main frame whitetail horns what does that constitute as... vise versa if you have a whitetail body with a double fork on each side( i.e. Mule deer) what would that be? I have seen several crosses and just wondered what would i tag it as?

[JTeLarkin08]

i would look at its ears and tail.. If it has a mule deer tail and ears its a mulie.. Honestly you probably should just look at the tail. they are very noticabily different.

[Ace141]

okay well i guess the question i should have asked would be....what would a game warden think i should tag it as?

[Jaspro]

You tag it as what it is. Don't worry about the rack.

This one is obviously a mule deer even though it has a whitetail rack.

[JTeLarkin08]

what i was saying is look at its tail. if it is a cross the colors could be off and look like both. THe tail is the sure fire way to know what it is.

[Lubbock hunter]

The tail will tell.

[Ace141]

alright guys thanks!!!

[wilded]

What about the antlers? Forget about the antlers; this is a worthless characteristic to judge whether an animal is a hybrid or not. Most documented hybrids have whitetail-like antlers but you can't count on antlers alone. I have 3 sets of antlers in my livingroom: 2 are whitetails with forked primary tines (G2) and the third is a desert mule deer with 8 long points, all arising from the mainbeam. There is simply too much variation in antlers to serve as a reliable indicator of hybridization. The whitetails in the Carmen Mountains of northern Mexico have been shown to exhibit a high degree of forked antlers like mule deer.

The best feature to determine if a deer is a hybrid is the size of the metatarsal gland, which is located on the outside of the lower portion of the rear legs. This should not be confused with the tarsal glands on the inside of the legs. The metatarsals on mule deer sit high on the lower leg and are 3 to 6 inches long and surrounded by light brown fur. The whitetail's metatarsals are at or below the mid-point of the lower leg, usually less than 1 inch, and surrounded by white hairs. A whitetail-mule deer hybrid has metatarsal glands that split the difference, usually measuring between 2-4 inches and encircled with white hair.

Two year-old mule deer are most frequently mistaken for hybrids. This is because of their smaller antler development and the fact that the dichotomous branching, producing the big "forks", usually does not occur until the buck is 3 years old. Young mule deer sometimes give the appearance of a very large white-tailed deer, especially if its tail has a dark stripe down the back, as sometimes occurs. Mule deer in some areas, like southern California, have a dark band running down the back of their tails.

[Texans42]

Long hocks Mulie- short hocks WT

[Shane]

The best feature to determine if a deer is a hybrid is the size of the metatarsal gland, which is located on the outside of the lower portion of the rear legs. This should not be confused with the tarsal glands on the inside of the legs. The metatarsals on mule deer sit high on the lower leg and are 3 to 6 inches long and surrounded by light brown fur. The whitetail's metatarsals are at or below the mid-point of the lower leg, usually less than 1 inch, and surrounded by white hairs. A whitetail-mule deer hybrid has metatarsal glands that split the difference, usually measuring between 2-4 inches and encircled with white hair.

BINGO! That's what game wardens and biologists have told me they look at to see if a deer is tagged correctly. I'm sure it can sometimes be a judgement call on a hybrid on whether to tag it as a muley or a WT. We don't have any hybrid tags.

[chigawaa]

When we were hunting in West Texas (Fort Stockton Area) on a ranch that had both Mules and White tails I killed a "Hybrid" deer. This was a very large ranch and the game warden was out daily durring Mule deer season to check on us. I asked the game warden what to tag the deer as becasue of the dilema.

White Tail rack structure (also had large Brow Tines, very very rare in Mule deer from this area)
Mule deer ears and head
Body size was medium whitetail
Tail was white tail


The game warden advised us that we should always tag the deer based on their tails as thats what he considered to be the defining characteristict.

So from then own everyone on the ranch tagged the deer using this method.

Now this was about 5 yeasr ago so things may have changed.

BTW here is a pick of the Hybrid (Tagged as a Whitetail by Game Warden)

[Shane]

There's the answer then, I guess. Find out what the local GW looks at on a hybrid and tag it based on that.

[Archermike2605]

You tag it as what it is. Don't worry about the rack.

This one is obviously a mule deer even though it has a whitetail rack.

I wouldn't say that was a whitetail rack, with those short brow tines (G-1's) not all mule deer "fork" on their G-2's inturn not having G-3's

You'r deer looks 100% Mule deer body and antlers

Nice kill, also!!