Ask The Biologist

Why mature bucks in some locations can look like night and day.

QUESTION: How many species of white-tailed deer are there in the state of Texas? I’m wondering because I have been hunting the same county for years and have noticed that there are two different types of deer, maybe more. Some of these deer are mature, and you could not stretch 13 inches out of their racks. They don’t even measure 13 inches from ear tip to ear tip. So I guess these deer are just going to grow old and die?

ANSWER: In all of North America there is one species of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). However, depending on which source you consult, biologists recognize somewhere around 20 subspecies. Within those there are distinct populations or races, some of which can be surprisingly different from one another, even between relatively close geographic areas.

For example, Buckmasters editor Ken Piper and I once hunted an area outside Uvalde, Texas. The property had two separate ranches, and depending on which unit you hunted, you could be hunting one of two obviously different strains of whitetail.

I later contacted Bob Zaiglin, the coordinator of the wildlife management program at Southwest Texas Junior College in Uvalde, to ask about the differences. According to Zaiglin, highway I-90 is roughly the geographic dividing line between Hill Country and Brush Country (or South Texas) deer. Zaiglin said there is a very obvious difference in body and antler size between the two.

“In Hill Country, a mature buck will average in the 120-inch range,” he said. “The average in South Texas is probably closer to between 135 and 140 inches.” Zaiglin also pointed out that field-aging Hill Country deer can be very difficult, particularly free-ranging animals.

As a side note, in a magazine article 18 years ago, I first proposed the concept of a Whitetail Slam, wherein hunters would try to harvest one of each of the recognized subspecies of white-tailed deer. I narrowed my list of 20 subspecies, derived from the book: White-tailed Deer: Ecology and Management, down to eight. Just a few years ago, an enterprising group of outdoorsmen borrowed my idea and turned it into a somewhat successful marketing ploy.

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