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desertdog

While we are on the subject (Mexican Coues)

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Last year at this time someone posted a picture of their "fantail" that they harvested on the coast of Mexico. If I could figure out how to use the search function - I could probably find it. It was tiny - and I believe he harvested it by the coastal area.

 

I'll do some more looking

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One of the guys I hunt with has a tiny 4x4 he took outside of Patagonia in the 1970's. The spread on this buck is about 4 inches. In think it's a young coues but he insists it's a fantail.

 

Unless whitetails were brought to that part of South America...it must be another species.

 

White-tailed deer are in the northern part of South America.

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Color and facial patterns vary among individuals of the same race. Here is a borealis I shot in Michigan in about 1997-8. Ten other bucks taken on that hunt by other hunters at that camp had very little to no dark colors on their muzzles. However, they all had that certain similar "look" about them that said "northeastern whitetail."

 

Bill Quimby

 

Wow, those are great shots!

 

So...the deer is called Coues' Deer (is this the correct way?)

 

I just wish more books on white-tailed deer would show side-by-side pictures and perhaps discuss these "observations". As a lay reader and non-biology reader, I confess that some of the readings are tough for me to understand. Sometimes I am not even sure if they get to the point either.

 

The "thesis" I saw on separating northern and southern whitetailed deer was a research paper (pdf file) that seemed to be done by a student/researcher at a university in one of the Central American countries. The paper was both in English and Spanish. I don't seem to find it on the internet anymore...or at least I haven't been researching "hard enough" for it.

 

The reading that discussed possibly several "subspecies" of white-tailed deer, last I remember, was really based on records and observations from past...early settlers maybe? You're right, such information really is not reliable as it is really hard to prove...and it was not written as factual...but more as a documentation. These observations were from lay people or perhaps people of science who lacked the methodologies of today.

 

I am always on the lookout for the latest on white-tailed deer genetics...but as an animal artist...the photographs and pictures attract me more to the book.

 

Some books that are good are "Whitetails in Action" and "Amazing Whitetails" by Mike Biggs...he has some great Texas white-tailed deer photographs. I have these two books at home too.

 

The Whitehead Encyclopedia of Deer, I purchased in Seattle...it is a rare book that I paid good money for, but was well worth it.

 

BTW, I have a compendium of red deer from Dr. Geist that separates this animal into 3 species (European Red Deer, Central Asian Red Deer, Asian and American Wapitis). Like I said earlier...I tend to side with Dr. Geist on his red deer and mule deer research. But, he doesn't write much on white-tailed deer.

 

washingtondc

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>>>>>>>>"So...the deer is called Coues' Deer (is this the correct way?)">>>>>>>

 

That is one way. Another would be Coues's, depending upon which English stylebook for creating possessive nouns that you follow when writing the common names of animals. In most useage, the apostrophe is dropped and the word "deer" would not be capitalized except in headlines where the first letter of every word is capped.

 

Note that the Boone and Crockett Club says "Dall's sheep" and "Stone's sheep" after the names of the men these sheep were named for, but calls our favorite deer "Coues deer." (No apostrophe. Go figure.) Nearly everyone else says "Dall sheep," "Stone sheep," "Coues deer," etc., capitalizing only proper names based on humans or actual locations -- such as "McNeill deer" and "Alaska-Yukon moose."

 

<<<<<<<<<"BTW, I have a compendium of red deer from Dr. Geist that separates this animal into 3 species (European Red Deer, Central Asian Red Deer, Asian and American Wapitis). Like I said earlier...I tend to side with Dr. Geist on his red deer and mule deer research. But, he doesn't write much on white-tailed deer.">>>>>>>

 

Geist is widely respected but not all of his work has been adopted by all scientists. As far as I can tell, most still classify those deer and others as one species -- Cervus elalphus -- with as many as 22 subspecies. This includes the five (one extinct) North American elk subspecies, Asia's four wapiti/maral subspecies, Eurasia's five red deer subspecies, Africa's one red deer subspecies, and the Bukharan, Yarkland, Hangul, Tibetan, Shou, McNeill, and Gansu deer. These last seven deer are considered "intermediate forms."

 

You might want to get a copy of the SCI Record Book of Trophy Animals, just for the text written by naturalist Jack Schwabland of Seattle. He compiled the work of many authorities (including Geist) and wrote it in "our" language. The newer books would require that you buy three volumes, but you could search the Internet's used book stores for copies of the earlier editions (preferably any of the Editions 5 through 9) where North America, Europe, Asia and the South Pacific are in one volume.

 

Below is a central Asian wapiti (elk) I shot in Mongolia when they still allowed foreigners to hunt them. (I had a hard time getting my Swarovski binocs back from that Mongol!) Darned if I could tell it from the elk I've shot here, but I didn't see that many up close in the ten days I was there.

 

Bill Quimby

post-46-1227616564_thumb.jpg

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One of the guys I hunt with has a tiny 4x4 he took outside of Patagonia in the 1970's. The spread on this buck is about 4 inches. In think it's a young coues but he insists it's a fantail.

 

Unless whitetails were brought to that part of South America...it must be another species.

 

White-tailed deer are in the northern part of South America.

 

I do believe he is talking about Patagonia, Arizona not anywhere in South America. I think some of the information that is getting passed around here is starting to get a little muddied up.

 

Phil

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This is one of those topics that will be discussed here and around campfires forever, that is until someone produces one of these supposed subspecies and the DNA is compared with other Coues deer. I'v shot a few small Coues deer that from a distance fooled me with their nice 3 and even four point racks that turned out to be young Coues, so far as I could tell, with several points where they shld have had one or two. I've also shot Coues deer with tails ranging from red to gray to almost black. In my opinion they are all Coues deer within the range of natural diversity for the species. Until someone shows me evidence backed by DNA I'll continue to believe that they are the same species, but it's a topic that many like to discuss, as witnessed by this thread. Jack

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This is one of those topics that will be discussed here and around campfires forever, that is until someone produces one of these supposed subspecies and the DNA is compared with other Coues deer. I'v shot a few small Coues deer that from a distance fooled me with their nice 3 and even four point racks that turned out to be young Coues, so far as I could tell, with several points where they shld have had one or two. I've also shot Coues deer with tails ranging from red to gray to almost black. In my opinion they are all Coues deer within the range of natural diversity for the species. Until someone shows me evidence backed by DNA I'll continue to believe that they are the same species, but it's a topic that many like to discuss, as witnessed by this thread. Jack

 

Agreed! (And thanks for putting us back on track.)

 

Bill Quimby

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Some of the bilogy of the subject is way over my head but I go along with curmudgen on this one. I find it more plausable that certain areas produce smaller bodied deer with smaller scale "nice racks." I would think this would be passed down through generations the same way certain genes are passed down through elk and deer populatios. I know of a place that is somewhat isolated from other "good typical coues habitat". The deer I have seen taken out of this area have more open racks with short tines, and long mains. These same deer have redish tipped tails. I also know that most of the men in family are not over 6', neither am I. It would be neat to be shown hard evidence of DNA or something to prove me wrong. I'm not ruling it out, look at the key deer.

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I knew I wasn't crazy - I found the post from last January from "firstcoueswas80".

 

http://forums.coueswhitetail.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8079&hl=Mexico

 

It looks like the pictures are no longer there. Maybe I can PM firstcoueswas80 and have him repost the pictures of that strange little whitetail.

 

 

 

 

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This thread caused me to get off my derierre and find out what happened to Roy Lopez's studies of the population genetics of Coues whitetails. Thanks to Dr. Phillip Service in the Biology Department at NAU, Roy's thesis advisor, Dr. Paul Beier, sent me a copy of Roy's thesis. He collected samples from 365 putative Coues whitetails from the Sky Island mountain ranges of Arizona and southwestern New Mexico and the Mogollon Rim country of Arizona.

 

Bottom line, DNA analyses showed that Coues whitetails fall into two groups, both genetically and geographically. One group are the deer inhabiting the Mogollon Rim country, while the second group includes all of the deer from the various Sky Island mountain ranges to the south.

 

As an aside, he looked at the incidence of hybridization between Coues whitetails and mule deer, based on genetic markers. More than half of the putative hybrids that he tested were assigned to either Coues whitetails or mule deer, but there were nine of the putative Coues whitetails that proved to hybrids. Modeling these results suggest that about two percent of Coues whitetails in free-ranging populations are hybrids (this includes individuals that are the result of back-crosses to one of the the original parent groups)!

 

This result falls into line with at least two other studies (one from Kansas and one from Alberta) that identified about two percent of the animals in the combined whitetail and mule deer harvests as hybrids...

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This thread caused me to get off my derierre and find out what happened to Roy Lopez's studies of the population genetics of Coues whitetails. Thanks to Dr. Phillip Service in the Biology Department at NAU, Roy's thesis advisor, Dr. Paul Beier, sent me a copy of Roy's thesis. He collected samples from 365 putative Coues whitetails from the Sky Island mountain ranges of Arizona and southwestern New Mexico and the Mogollon Rim country of Arizona.

Bottom line, DNA analyses showed that Coues whitetails fall into two groups, both genetically and geographically. One group are the deer inhabiting the Mogollon Rim country, while the second group includes all of the deer from the various Sky Island mountain ranges to the south. As an aside, he looked at the incidence of hybridization between Coues whitetails and mule deer, based on genetic markers. More than half of the putative hybrids that he tested were assigned to either Coues whitetails or mule deer, but there were nine of the putative Coues whitetails that proved to hybrids. Modeling these results suggest that about two percent of Coues whitetails in free-ranging populations are hybrids (this includes individuals that are the result of back-crosses to one of the the original parent groups)! This result falls into line with at least two other studies (one from Kansas and one from Alberta) that identified about two percent of the animals in the combined whitetail and mule deer harvests as hybrids...

 

Very interesting, especially the fact that just 365 specimens out of the many thousands of deer in Arizona are considered a valid sample.

 

Incidentally, although I've spent more than a half century selling words, I had never heard of the word "putative" before now and had to check my dictionary. (For those who are as ignorant as I was, it means: "reputed to be" or "generally considered to be.")

 

As for our so-called "sky islands," (gosh, I hate those words!) I suspect there is a lot more movement of deer between southern Arizona's mountain ranges than presently putatived. :D

 

Bill Quimby

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Just came across this thread and was surprised that nowhere is the term "Mexican Red" mentioned.

 

Back in the 80s I saw a large whitetail weighing over 100 lbs brought in for butchering. It's 3x3 rack was undersized for its body, and the antler points tapered sharply and got real skinny the last couple inches. Someone observed that it was a "Mexican Red," and that these deer are somewhat larger than the ordinary Arizona Coues. Indeed, its coat had a faint reddish cast in places, and not just around the tail and rump. It came from the Chiricahuas.

 

Later I asked an older hunter about Mexican Reds. This man had hunted whitetails along the border since the late 1950s. "You don't really want one of those," he told me. "Their antlers tend to be small for their bodies." And in fact that did describe the purported "Mexican Red" I had seen. The comparison is similar to the large-bodied Roosevelt elk to the smaller-bodied, larger antlered Rocky Mountain elk.

 

I have since been sternly admonished by biology professionals not to subscribe to the theory of the Mexican Red, and I believe the basis for their skepticism is sound. Local variations in color, size and other attributes may simply reflect the lack of need to travel far to find mates, which eventually leads to less genetic diversity and clusters of certain characteristics. Most of my Coues hunting has been in two units, 33 and 36B. I've noticed a tendency toward more reddish coats in the 36B whitetails while the Unit 33 Coues are more solidly battleship gray. I suspect this is due to the same dynamics that cause certain villages in Ireland and Scotland to have high numbers of redheads and others to have lots of blonds.

 

But nowadays biologists have a practical reason for discouraging careless splitting. The environmental activist community is always on the prowl for a new "species" they can get classified as endangered and thereby force restrictions on land uses and other activities. Here in Arizona they have been working on the "desert" bald eagle, a couple of purported mule deer subspecies in southern California and western Arizona, and the Yuma Puma (which lion expert Harley Shaw says doesn't exist and probably never did.)

 

I've often thought it might be fun to come up with a new "species" for the Center for Biological Diversity to chase after. (Did anyone see the South Park episode where Cartman dreamed up the endangered Mexican Staring Frog? Never mind.) But that could backfire. They might send out their own "biologists" who in turn might find "evidence" that indeed the Mexican Jumping Quail or whatever we might come up with does indeed exist as such, and convince a judge to stop quail hunts while the species is surveyed. This is dangerous area to try to have fun.

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Just came across this thread and was surprised that nowhere is the term "Mexican Red" mentioned.

 

Back in the 80s I saw a large whitetail weighing over 100 lbs brought in for butchering. It's 3x3 rack was undersized for its body, and the antler points tapered sharply and got real skinny the last couple inches. Someone observed that it was a "Mexican Red," and that these deer are somewhat larger than the ordinary Arizona Coues. Indeed, its coat had a faint reddish cast in places, and not just around the tail and rump. It came from the Chiricahuas.

 

Later I asked an older hunter about Mexican Reds. This man had hunted whitetails along the border since the late 1950s. "You don't really want one of those," he told me. "Their antlers tend to be small for their bodies." And in fact that did describe the purported "Mexican Red" I had seen. The comparison is similar to the large-bodied Roosevelt elk to the smaller-bodied, larger antlered Rocky Mountain elk.

 

I have since been sternly admonished by biology professionals not to subscribe to the theory of the Mexican Red, and I believe the basis for their skepticism is sound. Local variations in color, size and other attributes may simply reflect the lack of need to travel far to find mates, which eventually leads to less genetic diversity and clusters of certain characteristics. Most of my Coues hunting has been in two units, 33 and 36B. I've noticed a tendency toward more reddish coats in the 36B whitetails while the Unit 33 Coues are more solidly battleship gray. I suspect this is due to the same dynamics that cause certain villages in Ireland and Scotland to have high numbers of redheads and others to have lots of blonds.

 

But nowadays biologists have a practical reason for discouraging careless splitting. The environmental activist community is always on the prowl for a new "species" they can get classified as endangered and thereby force restrictions on land uses and other activities. Here in Arizona they have been working on the "desert" bald eagle, a couple of purported mule deer subspecies in southern California and western Arizona, and the Yuma Puma (which lion expert Harley Shaw says doesn't exist and probably never did.)

 

I've often thought it might be fun to come up with a new "species" for the Center for Biological Diversity to chase after. (Did anyone see the South Park episode where Cartman dreamed up the endangered Mexican Staring Frog? Never mind.) But that could backfire. They might send out their own "biologists" who in turn might find "evidence" that indeed the Mexican Jumping Quail or whatever we might come up with does indeed exist as such, and convince a judge to stop quail hunts while the species is surveyed. This is dangerous area to try to have fun.

 

Hi Larry.

 

Although it doesn't mean anything, I've hunted deer in every Arizona county since my first deer hunt in 1948 and I've never heard of the "Mexican red" until now. As for heavy Arizona whitetail deer, the late Bob Housholder (an outdoor writer and self-appointed keeper of all records pertaining Arizona hunting) once sent me a photograph of a woman with a big buck he claimed was the state record for weight. He said she had killed the deer on Fort Huachuca. If I remember correctly, her deer weighed close to 150 pounds, like 147.5 pounds, or something. It's been a long time since I saw that photo but the deer seemed close to twice the size of a regular Coues deer. I don't remember its antlers being anything special, though. I have the photo someplace, and I'll post it if I ever come across it again. I have no reason to believe it was not an Arizona whitetail.

 

Bill Quimby

 

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Bill,

 

If you've never heard of Mexican Reds, then my theory will be that this concept was very short-lived and got squashed by Game & Fish before it spread very far. I've not heard the term "Mexican Reds" for about 20 years now.

 

Larry

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