837 All About Fawn Spots

Monday, August 7, 2006

I had a question on the previous entry, as to how you can tell the sex of a fawn from the spots. All fawns have one or more often two rows of spots in a line on the top of their backs. On their sides, the spots are more randomly scattered. On a male fawn, the spots will usually (but not always) form lines along the bottom of their sides. Sometimes they are in lines even in the middle of their flanks. The more lines formed, the more likely it's male. The female fawn usually (but not always) has only the lines along the spine. The rest of the spots are randomly arranged. There's a theory that Nature favors the females, since She wants more of them, and random spots are more concealing.

Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_Deer, and scroll down a bit to the photo of a fawn (taken at Ricketts Glen, where I go to visit the falls. Wikipedia has a nice entry on Ricketts Glen, too.) Note the line of spots on the spine, and on the hip, and above the belly, and a few shorter lines here and there. This is most likely a male fawn.

At http://www.words4it.com/?p=9207, this is almost definitely a male. At http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1396/index2.tmpl, it's most likely a female.

So with "my" fawns, since they have the same mother, and their spots are very different, I feel confident in identifying one as male, and the other as female.

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I leave tomorrow for the Mensa International Gathering at Disney World. I may or may not be able to post from there.

Naturally, I've left everything 'til today, and I'm going crazy. The (last minute "Hey, why not") housesitter (whose street is being torn up and who would otherwise be without water or sewer for a week) can't come to learn about the house quirks until late this evening, and there's a town meeting at 7-ish to present the development plans for the village and surrounding town, that, given my view, I am very interested in. I'd like to drop in to see the maps, at least.

So - I'm off.