On july 2nd I was working an excavation job for a lake house just southwest of Austin, Texas and at around 9:00 in the morning the local deer got active. In one particular sighting I saw three does together, two in their usual red summer coats and one that was chocolate brown. Nornally these hill country and south Texas deer have darker winter coats from tan to dark gray. So, I'm wondering if this one doe becomes nearly black in the winter. I know that Hays county just to the south is known to have some melanistic deer. I would think this chocolate brown doe would fit the description of a melanistic whitetail. Has anyone else seen this before?

I've seen it with mule deer. There is a area not far from my house that we hunt and the deer tend to be a darker chocolate color. It seems once we cross the Bonapart river the deer start getting darker and larger. I've asked some of the locals up here about it and some know what I'm talking about. I'll try to remember to ask the CO's next time I bump into them. The moose start getting bigger there to.

I believe this trait is known as melanism.One would say that this doe is melanistic or has melanistic traits.

It is also possible that you saw a Sika Doe or a Chocolate Fallow doe.

It is not common for exotics and Whitetail to run together, but it is not all that odd either.

Unfortunately, the world may never know. Bet it was an interesting sight!

About 20 years ago in a area were we hunted whitetail there were a few black deer. I myself saw one and I had a couple of other people who saw them. I never harvested one of them they were really hard to see standing against a ceder tree they looked like a dark shadow plus i dont think there were many the one was a buck the one I saw was a doe. This area had some deer that ran dark grey. Someone else had ask the fellow over the deer program if there were any black deer durning that time he said no I never called and told him.

Wendell, leo here. It was definitly a whitetail doe.