Well as we can see my wife kicked my back side in a very big way during the Eastern Washington deer season. I am horrible with the computer and do not know how to thumbnail these. I had my teenage son do it so enjoy
Top one looks like a whitetail aside from that one left point with a fork. Muletail? Nice deer though. They can't all be a trophy but they can all be dinner!!
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The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun.
—Patrick Henry
The Washington State Deer Biologist certified them both as Blacktails. The GMU we were hunting in was 3 point or better I looked at mine for more than half an hour before I could see the eye guards.
For many years the Columbian Blacktail Deer has been considered a subspecies of the Mule deer, however recent DNA testing has proven this not to be the case. In Valerius Geist's informative book Mule Deer Country he explains that by testing the mitochondrial DNA (the mothers DNA ) of the three species (blacktail, whitetail and mule deer), researchers have now determined that it was the mating of Whitetail does and Blacktail buck's that gave rise to the Mule deer and not the opposite as was once suspected.
It is now believed that millions of years ago the Whitetail deer expanded its range down the east coast of the United States, across Mexico, and then back up the West coast, where it eventually evolved into the Blacktail Deer. This may help to explain the strong resemblance in appearance and psychological characteristics between the two. Thousands of years later as the recently evolved Blacktail's range spread eastward and the Whitehall's range again expanded westward, the two deer again met. At this point the Blacktail bucks displaced the Whitetail bucks and bred the Whitetail does. Researches now believe that it is this hybridization that produced what is now know as the Muledeer.
