White-tailed deer
| White-tailed deer | |
|---|---|
| Male (buck or stag) | |
| Female (doe) O. v. nelsoni with juveniles (fawns) | |
Secure (NatureServe) | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Family: | Cervidae |
| Subfamily: | Capreolinae |
| Genus: | Odocoileus |
| Species: | O. virginianus
|
| Binomial name | |
| Odocoileus virginianus (Zimmermann, 1780)
| |
| Subspecies | |
|
38, see text | |
| White-tailed deer range map | |
| Synonyms | |
| |
The white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), also known commonly as the whitetail and the Virginia deer, is a medium-sized species of deer native to North and South America. It is the most widely distributed mainland ungulate herbivore in the Americas; coupled with its natural predator, the mountain lion (Puma concolor), it is one of the most widely distributed terrestrial mammal species in the Americas and the world. Highly adaptable, the various subspecies of white-tailed deer inhabit many different ecosystems, from arid grasslands to the Amazon and Orinoco basins; from the Llanos to the high-elevation terrain of the Andes.