SPOTTED: Rare Pitch Black Deer!
This is the rarest coloring for whitetail deer in nature!
A rare black deer was spotted in Northern Michigan by a realtor. John Roach posted the photo of the deer on his Facebook page. He saw the rare animal at his property in North West Michigan.
I see a lot of critters up here but I have never seen nor even heard of one of these. I was taking my trailer back to my pole barn property yesterday and so drove past the driveway in order to back in. As I looked to my left I saw 2 deer in the lane that runs to the back of the property- nothing unusual except that one was typical and one was pitch black. I had my phone on the seat and was able to get 2 good shots of them before they ran to the pines to the west. I hope that you can zoom the picture to see it up close.
Melanistic deer have a gene that causes their bodies to produce too much melanin. This gives them their striking black coloring. The chances of seeing one are not even calculated because of their rarity. Albinism occurs in 1 in 30,000 deer, but this mutation is much rarer.
More common are piebald deer which occurs in 1 in 1000 or so whitetails. You can watch one of those in the video below.
