Mule Deer Fawn In The Prairie Grass Royalty-Free Stock Photography

The mule deer Odocoileus hemionus is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer.Unlike the related white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus, which is found through most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains and in the valleys of the Rocky Mountains from Idaho and Wyoming northward, mule deer are only found on the western Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the southwest United States, and on the west coast of North America. Mule deer have also been introduced to Argentina and Kauai, Hawaii.Mule deer can be divided into two main groups: the mule deer sensu stricto and the black-tailed deer. The first group includes all subspecies, except O. h. columbianus and O. h. sitkensis, which are in the black-tailed deer group. The two main groups have been treated as separate species, but they hybridize, and virtually all recent authorities treat the mule deer and black-tailed deer as conspecific.[1][5][6][7][9][10] Mule deer apparently evolved from the black-tailed deer. Despite this, the mtDNA of the white-tailed deer and mule deer is similar, but differs from that of the black-tailed deer. This may be the result of introgression, although hybrids between the mule deer and white-tailed deer are rare in the wild apparently more common locally in West Texas, and the hybrid survival rate is low even in captivity.