Mule Deer

muledeerbg: Mule DeerCOMMON NAME: Mule Deer

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Odocoileus hemionus

DESCRIPTION:

A medium-sized deer, the coat is reddish in summer and gray-brown in winter. Their large ears are dark. The black-tipped tail is conspacious against their white rump. Male mule deer have antlers that are deciduous and dichotomously branched with a small spike near the base. Females have no antlers. Upper incisors and canines are replaced by a padded upper palate in this species. There are 6 subspecies in the Pacific States, which vary in size, color, and tail characteristics. The subspecies at CALM, O. h. columbianus (black-tailed deer), has a white rump patch that does not go over the base of the tail and the outside surface of the tail is black. The Black tailed Deer live in the Coast Range; the Sierran Mule Deer are larger. Mule deer weigh 100-400 pounds, height is 3-3.5 feet avg.

LIFE HISTORY:

Life Span: to 16 years in the wild; 25 years in captivity

Mating Season: late October

Gestation Period: 195-212 days

Litter Size: 1-2 born May or June . Fawns continue to nurse until late summer. Autumn begins rut, the mating season, when bucks battle for herds of females and the right to breed. Does breed when 1.5 years old, bucks at 2.5 years. The does will leave the herd just before she delivers her fawns. She will choose a secluded spot with protected cover. They will stay away from the others while they learn each other's smells and calls. The fawn will lie low while the doe browses for her food. When she returns, the fawn will nurse and they will lay down to sleep. They will rejoin the herd.

Litter per year: 1

ECOLOGY:

Habitat: Mule Deer prefer open wooded mountain and foothill areas throughout the state; absent in the San Joaquin Valley and Southeast desserts.

Food: Herbivorous browsers, mule deer eat 2 pounds a day of woody browse, leaves, forbs, and herbs including oak, filaree, brome grass, manzanita, ceanothus, and baccharis. Mule Deer migrate to lower elevations in the fall where browse is still available. They frequently becom overabundant and overbrowse their habitat which reduces their food sources. They are preyed upon by mountain lions, coyotes and bobcat.

Ecosystem: Throughout all land ecosystems of California.

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