Look at This Piebald Mule Deer Spotted on a Colorado Highway
Take a look at this piebald mule deer that was spotted on a highway in Colorado. We love seeing the wildlife in Colorado, including the deer. This deer looks a little bit different because of its coloration.
The Colorado mule deer was spotted off of Highway 160 by local resident Tim Sullivan, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife Durango. You can see the deer is abnormally colored and it's because it's piebald.
Piebald means the animal has a pattern of unpigmented spots on a pigmented background, according to Wikipedia. It's caused by a genetic abnormality that causes some cells to not be able to produce color. Lots of animals can be piebald from fish to birds, to deer.
As you can see above and below, this particular mule deer is almost completely white and is absolutely beautiful. The Colorado mule deer appears to only have a band of brown around its neck and shoulders.
According to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the chances of seeing a deer that looks like this are 1 in 500,000. It's extremely rare for animals to be piebald because both of the animal's parents have to have the recessive gene in order to pass it along.
We love seeing pictures of albino, melanistic, piebald, and basically all deer and wildlife in Colorado. Canon City here in Colorado had both a piebald deer and an albino deer, which are both so cool. We can only hope that this deer will continue to roam freely and not ended up getting mounted on someone's wall.