White tailed deer

https://web.duke.edu/nicholas/bio217/ekc7/deer.htm

 White tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus

The white tailed deer belong to Cervidae family. 

The adults are brown and red during the warmer months and grey and brown in the colder months. They have white patches around the eyes, ears and underside. The males have antlers in the summer but they fall of during the winter, the antlers regrow every year. The males use the antlers in fights with other males. 

They mate in from November to February . During May through to June the females can give birth to three young at a time. The pregnancy is seven months. The young are brown/red with white spots and these help them to be camouflaged in the forests. They are able to walk from birth and after six weeks fully weaned. The female and young stay together in groups, and the males are alone apart from mating season. 

During the summer months they are in fields, using the big tress for shade from the sun, during the colder months they stay in the warmth of the forests and to stay out of the bad weather. 

The deer are ruminants, so they have four chambered stomached, the rumen and reticulum where the food is chewed and mixed with bile forming the cud. The cud is regurgitated, chewed and swallowed again to get the remaining nutrients. In the omasum the water content is removed and abomasum sends the rest of the intestines for the final nutrients to be removed. The deer are grazers and eat only vegetation, in the summer they eat green foliage and in the winter they eat nuts, acorns and corn. they are mainly active in the evening and early morning. As the deer are prey to big cats they use their agility and speed  (thirty miles per hour) to try and out run the predators. 

If the deer are alarmed or startled they will make as much noise as possible to warn the others in the group, this is done by stomping and snorting. 

Nhptv.org, (2015). White-tailed Deer - Odocoileus virginianus - NatureWorks. [online] Available at: http://www.nhptv.org/natureworks/whitetaileddeer.htm [Accessed 14 Apr. 2015].

Society, N. (2015). White-Tailed Deer, White-Tailed Deer Pictures, White-Tailed Deer Facts - National Geographic. [online] National Geographic. Available at: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/white-tailed-deer/ [Accessed 14 Apr. 2015].