During my weekend in Hardeman County I had a few ranchers tell me that they had Whitetail and Mule Deer on their ranches living together. One told me that he has actually seen mule deer does that have been bred by whitetails creating a hybrid deer. Is this genetically possible?

Yep...

yeah it is. The last 2 culls we shoot were both hybrids

What Cornhusker said.

Mule deer and White Tail are genetically very close.

According to some researchers, the white tail supposedly evolved from Mule deer.

I have my doubts as to the validity of that claim.

We have White Tail x Mule deer hybrids on the ranch where we do our javelina hunts.

I watched a guy on our lease shot his buck while it was chasing a bunch of mule deer does.

The guy we lease from has a couple of bruiser hybrid bucks on his wall. He shot them out near Ft Stockton

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buck while it was chasing a bunch of mule deer does.

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What we usually see are muley does with a white tail buck.

We killed this one on our place 3 years ago. We ran into our local game warden and he thought it might be a cross.. Our taxidermists also said it was a cross. I was just glad it was muley season when he came out..

i've heard of them around here as well.

can these hybrids breed? i know some other hybrids cant.

How would you tag a hybrid? Would you determine that by the features of the deer. Or am I dumb a$$

Not really sure. But I shot a doe up there this Thanksgiving and she was pretty big. i thought for a minute I had shot a mulie doe.

You will love this, we asked our game warden the same question and he told us if we were in doubt about how to tag it to call him...thats funny.. i have seen guys at the gas station that had hyrbrids and they had them tagged as whitetail.. we dont take any chances when in doubt let it walk is what we go buy

We should get some input from the pros.
Crazyhorse you are needed for this discussion please sir

i think i would definately shoot a hybrid and i would just tag it with whichever i had more tags left of. That is an awesome looking buck. Other than forking antlers and those characteristic muley brow tines what was mule deer like in him? What color was his tail on the outside?

He was a muley, big ears and the tail. its easy to tell when you have a whitetail next to him

Oh goly gee what's one to do

The advice about calling the GW was really good. They need to make the call.

Just because an animals rack may look like it belongs to one type or the other, does not mean that is what the GW is going to say it is.

Example, I used to have a 4x4 Mule deer rack, that everyone I showed it to, swore up and down was a white tail rack.

It did actually look like a normal 8 point white tail rack.

But I was there the day the animal was shot and it was a muley buck shot west of Meeker Colorado.

There are no white tails within a couple hundred miles maybe more of where that animal was shot.

From what folks have told me, most times the GW is going to say tag it as a white tail.

From the animals I have seen out on the ranch they normally do look more like a white tail.

There is however that possiblity of shooting one that has more mule deer characteristics.

I for one would not want to be stopped and caught with a hybrid buck, tagged as a white tail, and the GW stopping you, was doing so on I-20 between Weatherford and Fort Worth and he had never seen a hybrid in his life, and his decision was that it was a muley.

Making that phone call to the GW in the area where the animal was shot and letting him/her make the decision on how to tag it, and even getting something in writing from him/her, verifying their decision and listing their contact information, badge number and such, could mean the difference in sevral hours of trying to exoplain ones way out of a ticket, a confiscated deer , and several thousand dollars in fines and restitution fees. JMO.

From what I've seen and heard in Texas and other states, most places tag them as Whitetail. Reasoning is that the Mule Deer was supposedly an original cross between the whitetail and blacktail deer. Although wildlife biologist still do not agree to that fact.

Another article that I read in the Texas Wildlife Association magazine, stated that sometimes the "hybrid" is at a major disadvantage when it attempts to escape.... it has difficulty in making an instinctive decision whethter to run away like a whitetail or "stott" like a mule deer!

Would really like to see one in the wild sometime!

Crazyhorse, thanks for you insight. I can always count on you experience and perspective. Thanks from a lot of us for taking the time to contribute like you do.

I hunt in the Texas panhandle and see crosses frequently. The game warden allows us to tag the deer as either a mule deer or a whitetail deer, so we will usually tag them as a muley if they are in season and that way we can hunt for a good whitetail buck.

It is a bit difficult to distinguish the deer when you see them, but after they are shot the tarsal glands on the legs are going to be longer than a whitetail but shorter than a muley. The bucks can breed, but are more likely to breed with mule deer and their offspring will be more like a mule deer than a whitetail.

Thanks Ya'll

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From what I've seen and heard in Texas and other states, most places tag them as Whitetail. Reasoning is that the Mule Deer was supposedly an original cross between the whitetail and blacktail deer. Although wildlife biologist still do not agree to that fact.

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The articles I have been seeing lately say just the opposite.

Some researchers and field biologists are saying that white tails evolved from Mule Deer x Black Tailed deer crossings.

The odd thing and many folks forget about this, from the time of European settlement of the eastern part of the U.S. until the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition, Mule deer had not been seen by easterners.

Once the expedition reached the plains along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers they started encountering Muleys which while appearing similar, were completely different in habits and habitat requirements.

Yet when whites reached the Washington/Oregon area, they came upon the Columbian White Tail deer, which look like a normal white tail from the east.

One other little piece of information I happened upon one time is that some researcher feel that the white tail and mule deer are more closely related to the moose than the elk or caribou.

Yep, Recently on a hunting show they also said that Mule Deer 'originated from' a 'cross' between a Blacktail and Whitetail deer. The words 'originated from' and 'cross' may not have been the exact wording. The show was a Wildlife series by Boone & Crockett and sponsored by Cabelas.
Hybrid Deer or Hybrid Bass, I'll take either one.