On Wednesday afternoon my son, Randy, sent me these pictures he just took in San Marcos of 2 melanistic deer.  The pictures were taken just east of Randy’s house and his neighbor’s car radio ariel shows in the second pic.  The other, larger deer is probably the mother of the two yearlings.  On my September 5, 2010 post, “[More On Melanistic Deer]”, the featured pictures showed a nice melanistic,   buck and, probably, this buck was the sire of the 2 yearlings.  Obviously the genetic trait had been passed on to the next generation.

Randy should contact Dr John Baccus and John Posey, at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.  These researchers are the world’s leading authorities on melanistic deer and they are right in his hometown.

According to Dr. Baccus and John Posey, some deer are semi-melanistic, meaning they display coloration and markings somewhere between those of normal and melanistic specimens. Semi-melanistic deer have the dark overall coloration of melanistic deer but retain the white areas of normally colored deer.  This yearling in the September 5, post and picture must be semi-melanistic.

The buck pictured is a nice one, too!

Speaking of nice bucks, on December 3, one of my game cameras took this “shot” of a really, nice, almost, super buck and having already “punched my tag”, all I can do is take camera “shots” and wait for next year!