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PHOTOS: Rare White Deer In NE Ohio Spotted With New Fawn
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WJW) – A rare white deer in Northeast Ohio appears to have given birth to a new fawn.
Former Mill Creek MetroParks Naturalist Robert Coggeshall lives near the park in Youngstown and has photographed and documented the journey of several white deer in the area for years.
Most recently following the journey of a deer he calls "Faith."
On May 17, Coggeshall shared on Facebook a photograph of a newlyborn fawn. He said, he spotted the young deer while photographing Faith and wrote, "Not sure if it is Faith's or merely coincidental that Faith happened to be near it. Will check back later to see if Faith is still near to it."
In the following days, Coggeshall continued to share updates of the fawn and Faith still close to one another.
"I was out with Faith this morning, in the same location she was yesterday with the fawn. If it is her fawn, she has it well hidden, away from potential predators," wrote Coggeshall in one post.
Then on May 22, Coggeshall shared additional pictures showing the two together — and on the move.
The young deer does not appear to display the same albino characteristics as its mother. However, that can be expected. According to worlddeer.Org, an albino deer's cells have little to no melanin, which gives it that bright white appearance.
"The condition is passed down from parents to offspring when both of the parents carry the recessive melanin gene. If one or neither of the parents has the gene, then the offspring won't be albino," reports worlddeer.Org. "This is what makes the condition so rare, as the likelihood of both a doe and a buck having the recessive gene is extremely low."
While albino and white-colored animals are unusual to see, their presence in and around Northeast Ohio has been documented across social media and by local news outlets. Particularly, albino deer.
Mill Creek MetroParks has been home to several white deer over the years. Just a couple of years ago, FOX 8 reported on three baby deer born just outside of Millcreek Metroparks, including one that was albino.
Other animals with the rare color pigment that have made news headlines include an albino porcupine, swell shark, turtle, and raccoon – just to name a few.
Rare 'Albino Moose' Spotted Strutting Through Canada: 'A Spiritual Moment'
A stunning white moose in Alberta, Canada, left a driver awestruck.
X user @TreeTanner posted about their encounter, sharing that they saw a rare "albino moose" and the sighting was "a spiritual moment."
"What a spiritual moment we had last night seeing this Albino Moose with her twin," the driver posted on X (formerly Twitter) on April 29 alongside a video of the wild animal encounter.
In the clip, a bright white moose walks down a hill and crosses a road. A moose with a dark brown coat closely follows behind.
The video continues with the moose reuniting on the other side of the road, looking out at the landscape together.
Albinism is a genetic mutation that causes cells not to produce melanin. Melanin is the pigment that colors the skin, scales, eyes, and hair of animals and humans.
Leucism, a partial loss of melanin pigmentation caused by genetic mutations, can also lead to all-white coats in animals. Unlike albinism, leucism does not affect eye pigmentation.
A white moose spotted in Alberta, Canada.@treetanner/Amazing Animals+/TMX
The wild, all-white moose spotted trotting through Canada is not the first creature to be noticed for its unexpected coloring.
A golden retriever puppy born in March made headlines for their "bright, bright lime green" fur in April. The pup, aptly named Shamrock, was born with a bold, green coat shortly before St. Patrick's Day.
The coloring, which wore off over several weeks, was caused by biliverdin. Shamrock was stained by the bile pigment, which can sometimes mix with a pup's amniotic fluid, while in utero.
Carole DeBruler of Golden Treasures Kennel told PEOPLE Shamrock is "a lucky dog!"
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"She just shines," she added of the puppy.
Shamrock, who is now a light, golden color, found her forever family after her viral fame.
"The gentleman getting her has just retired, and she will be his world. He loves her already so much," DeBruler says. "She's so loved now."
New Genus Of Tiny, Hornless Deer That Lived 32 Million Years Ago Discovered At Badlands National Park
Researchers have discovered a new genus of prehistoric deer that they believe existed some 32 million years ago in an area around what is now southwestern South Dakota. The deer would not have resembled anything like the ones that exist today, though. A study into a fossilized skull found at Badlands National Park, which eventually led to the novel findings, suggested that all of these deer were hornless and roughly the size of a modern household cat.
The study was carried out by a team of researchers from the national park, the American Museum of National History and California State Polytechnic University, and published recently in the Proceedings of the South Dakota Academy of Science, a journal.
Mattison Shreero and Ed Welsh, both rangers at Badlands National Park, led the research effort. They named the newly-discovered deer santuccimeryx, or "Santucci's ruminant," after paleontologist Vincent Santucci, who helped shape the paleontology program at the park, the National Park Service said this week.
In a statement to the agency, Santucci said that he was "personally and professionally grateful to be associated with this important new fossil discovery," particularly because it came from the place where he started his career as a National Park Service paleontologist almost four decades ago.
An artistic reconstruction of the newly named genus Santuccimeryx. Illustration by Benji Paysnoe / National Park ServiceSantuccimeryx as a genus belongs to the Leptomerycidae family, which is extinct, and roamed parts of North America from about 41 million years ago to about 11 million years ago. That family are considered close relatives of mouse deer, whose appearance follows the name and which live in tropical forests in western Africa and southeastern Asia, according to the National Park Service. But certain features of this creature were unlike anything else — the skull, for one, had elements characteristic of different prehistoric animals that lived almost 10 million years apart.
Researchers identified similarly unusual combinations when looking at dental features. That led them to identify the fossils as part of "a distinct species" within the previously unknown santuccimeryx genus.
"Genus" as a term refers to the group within which multiple species exist. For example, dogs, foxes, wolves and a number of other dog-like creatures all belong to the same genus, called canis, while humans belong to the genus Homo sapiens.
The hornless deer fossil was discovered in 2016 at Badlands, which, like the creature itself, would be an unrecognizable landscape during the period when the deer actually lived. Geologists say the rock formations that eventually became Badlands began being deposited well before the santuccimeryx, but erosion processes that led to the park's current appearance did not start happening until 500,000 years ago.
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