Deer Essay

White-tailed deer the most common member of the deer family and are also known as “Virginia Deer”. The first part of the name comes from its most distinctive feature, the 6-11 inch white tail or “flag”. A white-tailed deer averages around 42 inches tall, this deer ranges anywhere from 100 and 300 pounds in weight. The color of the deer's upper body and sides changes with the season, from a normal reddish-brown in summer to a greyish color in winter. Its belly and underside of its tail is completely white along with a white patch on their throat. White-tailed deer shed its fur twice a year, changing from a heavier coat in the winter to a thinner coat in the spring. A fawns coat is very similar, except that it has many white spots all over until about 4 months old. Fawns are born late spring or early summer.

The white-tailed deer lives in wooded areas. Gray wolves and mountain lions used to be predators of the white-tailed deer. So some areas do become over populated. People and dogs are now the deer's main predator. Because there are not many natural predators, deer populations can sometimes grow too large for their environment and deer can starve to death. In rural areas, hunters help control deer populations, but in suburban and urban areas hunting is often not allowed and deer populations can grow out of control. Disease and parasites like lice, mites and roundworms can weaken or kill deer. Young deer and old deer often get sick and die, especially in the winter.

This specific deer is an herbivore or plant eater. It feeds in the early morning hours and in the late afternoon. This deer's diet changes depending on its habitat and the season. It eats green plants in the spring and summer. In the fall, it eats corn, acorns and ot...

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...white-tailed deer comes from one of seven glands. Three of these glands are located on the legs. The interdigital glands are between the hooves of all four feet. The metatarsal glands are on the outside of the hind legs and the tarsal glands are on the inside of the hind legs. The tarsal gland is perhaps the most important of the glands found on the leg. This gland consists of a patch of elongated hairs underlain by an area of large sebaceous glands. The sebaceous glands secrete a fatty lipid that adheres to the hairs of the tarsal gland. This area gives off a strong, musky odor. This odor is the result of urine being deposited on these glands and mixed with lipids during a behavior known as rub-urination. During rub-urination, a deer rubs the two tarsal glands together while urinating over them. All deer engage in this rub-urination behavior throughout the year.