Have you ever seen a melanistic deer in the wild?

[Motivated]

I had never heard of this prior to a few days ago when I was researching deer coloring and pigmentation. I did a quick search here with the words "melanic" and "melanistic", but nothing resulted, so I thought I would link to these articles for others as well.

http://www.northamericanwhitetail.com/n ... elanistic/

https://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/fi ... -whitetail

Has anyone here on the Beast seen a melanistic deer in the wild? The odds are better in Texas, but they haven been taken in multiple states, including Pennsylvania.

[Babshaft]

I had no idea that existed! So I've definitely never seen anything like that in the wild. That's pretty cool. Thanks for sharing that.

[Boogieman1]

I have seen pics of wild ones. They are more rare than an albino. I had a big piebald buck I chased for awhile that looked cool. Would have made an awesome mount, guess he died of old age cause I would have heard of him being killed.

[Edcyclopedia]

That's ironic...

[<DK>]

Wicked looking deer!

[ghoasthunter]

I had never heard of this prior to a few days ago when I was researching deer coloring and pigmentation. I did a quick search here with the words "melanic" and "melanistic", but nothing resulted, so I thought I would link to these articles for others as well.

http://www.northamericanwhitetail.com/n ... elanistic/

https://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/fi ... -whitetail

Has anyone here on the Beast seen a melanistic deer in the wild? The odds are better in Texas, but they haven been taken in multiple states, including Pennsylvania.

my dad shot this buck in Adirondacks in 90s it was jet black and gray

[Boogieman1]

In one of the Wensels books they were keeping tabs on one Barry named Tyrone. Believe a neighbor shot it b4 it was able to mature, but not positive.

[Motivated]

I had never heard of this prior to a few days ago when I was researching deer coloring and pigmentation. I did a quick search here with the words "melanic" and "melanistic", but nothing resulted, so I thought I would link to these articles for others as well.

http://www.northamericanwhitetail.com/n ... elanistic/

https://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/fi ... -whitetail

Has anyone here on the Beast seen a melanistic deer in the wild? The odds are better in Texas, but they haven been taken in multiple states, including Pennsylvania.

my dad shot this buck in Adirondacks in 90s it was jet black and gray

That is awesome! Did he have it mounted? That's a once in a lifetime right there...

[Bonecrusher101]

No I've never seen piebald, albino, or melanistic deer.

I did watch a grey squirrel mixed in with a bunch of other squirrels that had a white stripe that ran the length of its body along its back from the tip of its tail to the tip of its nose. I thought about shooting it with my .270 but decided against it.

[Dhurtubise]

There’s an area near where I live that produces the odd one. There was a real big mature buck 150+ that a good friend of mine saw for three years straight but could never close the deal on him. One year he got a shot but totally missed him. During that same time frame he also saw a melanistic fawn which would be about 4 years old now if he has survived. I’ll be keeping trail cameras in that spot this year- now that he doesn’t hunt it any more.

Personally I’ve never seen one but man o man how much fun would it be to get on a track of a big mature Canadian melanistic buck....sigh.

[Babshaft]

There’s an area near where I live that produces the odd one. There was a real big mature buck 150+ that a good friend of mine saw for three years straight but could never close the deal on him. One year he got a shot but totally missed him. During that same time frame he also saw a melanistic fawn which would be about 4 years old now if he has survived. I’ll be keeping trail cameras in that spot this year- now that he doesn’t hunt it any more.

Personally I’ve never seen one but man o man how much fun would it be to get on a track of a big mature Canadian melanistic buck....sigh.

Man that’d be unreal. I’ve never seen or heard of one in southern or eastern Ontario. Here’s hoping that fawn survived and he’s a big boy you can get a crack at!

[ghoasthunter]

I had never heard of this prior to a few days ago when I was researching deer coloring and pigmentation. I did a quick search here with the words "melanic" and "melanistic", but nothing resulted, so I thought I would link to these articles for others as well.

http://www.northamericanwhitetail.com/n ... elanistic/

https://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/fi ... -whitetail

Has anyone here on the Beast seen a melanistic deer in the wild? The odds are better in Texas, but they haven been taken in multiple states, including Pennsylvania.

my dad shot this buck in Adirondacks in 90s it was jet black and gray

That is awesome! Did he have it mounted? That's a once in a lifetime right there...

just a shoulder mount that buck was old too his teeth were about flat. every once in a while we would see deer with that in the Adirondacks in one place we hunted. but that was in the 90s I haven't been to that area since 98. its one of the most remote areas up there so you never know that gene could still haunt those woods.

[BigStick]

I’ve never heard of them before. Very cool looking deer. I’ve been seeing up to 5 albino deer recently on my drive home and thought that was pretty rare!

[Net Guy]

I’ve seen several albino deers but never melanistic ones. My dad trapped a melanistic coon once which was really cool. It was jet black with zero stripes or other markings whatsoever.

[brancher147]

Never seen a melanistic but have heard of them.

Back when our deer herd population was crazy high (90's and early 2000's) I saw many albino, and saw 3 together once side by side. I still see piebald a couple a year.