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Test your knowledge about white-tailed deer, one of the most common species of deer in North America

White-tailed deer
Odocoileus virginianus

White-tailed deer are found throughout the United States except in the far West. They get their name from a patch of white found on the underside of their tail and extending onto the rump area. When they are startled they will raise their tails, thereby flashing this bold white warning to any other deer in the vicinity to look out for trouble. Males possess a set of antlers that they use to defend the territory they pick out for mating season. A large white tail stands as much as 3 1⁄2 feet at the shoulders and can reach up to 300 pounds. Are you familiar with these frequent companions?

True or False:
1.	You can tell a deer’s age by the size of its antlers.
2.	The white tail’s genus name “odocoileus” is from the Greek word “Odous”, meaning tooth, and “Koilos”, meaning hollow, referring to hollow teeth of deer.
3.	According to the book “Owls aren’t wise and bats aren’t blind”: “In one experiment, an area of roughly one thousand acres was surrounded by deer-proof fence. Biologist then used controlled hunting to cut the number of deer in this enclosure to ten. Then they stopped all hunting to see what would happen. What happened was that the ten remaining deer multiplied to 212 in only five years!” Is this a true statement?
4.	If a fawn is found alone, you know the mother has been killed or has abandoned it.
5.	All deer possess horns.

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