Everyone who\u2019s familiar with the two most popular deer species in the U.S. has their own method of telling a mule deer from a whitetail. If you happen to live in an area where the two species\u2019 ranges overlap<\/a>, then you\u2019ve probably been playing the \u201cmule deer versus whitetail\u201d game for a while. Maybe your brain works on autopilot and you can identify the species instantly. Or maybe you still struggle and need to double-check the tail\u2014the most surefire identifier\u2014every time you see a deer. <\/p>\n Here\u2019s the problem with waiting for a tail sighting: If you see a muley\u2019s white rump or a whitetail\u2019s flag, it\u2019s probably because that deer is running in the opposite direction. But you don\u2019t have to wait that long to confirm which species is in your optics. Here are a few other ways to distinguish between the two. After all, a correct identification can end up being the difference between a memorable hunt and a citation for an illegal harvest.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s assume a doe is either quartering toward you or standing broadside and looking your way. You can\u2019t rely on tail or antlers to identify the deer species. How do you tell the two faces apart?<\/p>\n Mule deer usually have lighter fur that covers from their eyes to their noses, while whitetails have rings of light fur around their eyes and nose but darker fur on the rest of their faces. Both species have white patches on their throats, but the darker fur above the eyes of most mule deer can be a good tell. (This can look a lot like a unibrow, especially on bucks.) Whitetails\u2019 faces tend to be slightly narrower, although that might be hard to notice unless you have a muley standing nearby for comparison. <\/p>\n Ultimately, look for a difference in color between the fur around the eyes and on the bridge of the nose. If the colors are uniform, you\u2019re probably looking at a whitetail. If the fur is darker above the eyes than on the snout, it\u2019s probably a mule deer. <\/p>\n Let\u2019s assume we\u2019re still differentiating between antlerless deer. Anyone who has glassed deer in the West is intimately familiar with what a set of ears peeking through tall grass looks like. If you\u2019re in an area where muleys and whitetails overlap, identifying deer by their ears alone is always a fun test. <\/p>\n Mule deer were actually named for their large ears, according to the Mule Deer Foundation<\/a>. The lower edge of a muley\u2019s ear is more curved, while the upper edge extends in a near-straight line from the skull plate at a roughly 120-degree angle. Whitetail ears are noticeably smaller. They are also more rounded and sit a bit higher on the head. When fully alert, they stand at closer to a 100-degree angle from the skull plate. In some instances, mule deer ears bottleneck where they attach to the head before fanning out, while whitetail ears tend to be a bit wider at the base. Both sets of ears have dark edges, but the color contrast in mule deer ears is sometimes more pronounced. <\/p>\n Now let\u2019s assume you\u2019re staring at a well-adorned buck and want to identify the species based on its antlers. Without a doubt, antlers are the one feature that varies the most from individual to individual, so sometimes a mule deer buck can have antlers that slightly resemble a whitetail\u2019s, or vice versa. But there are plenty of structural consistencies in both species\u2019 antlers that you can rely on to make the correct identification.<\/p>\n Classic, typical whitetail antlers have one prominent main beam on each side that curves around\u2014often parallel to the ground on more mature deer\u2014and toward their noses. Generally, you can trace that beam from the pedicle, or where the antler grows from the skull plate, to the very tip at the front of the rack. Tines shoot off this main beam at perpendicular or near-perpendicular angles. <\/p>\n Typical mule deer antlers, on the other hand, aren\u2019t centered on the main beam. Instead, each side of the antler forks near the base, then forks again in the rear and front. The threshold for a mature mule deer is often (though not always) whether or not he has \u201cboth forks\u201d on each side of his antlers. The antlers tend to grow more upward than forward. These Boone and Crockett antler scoresheets help illustrate the differences between typical whitetail<\/a> and typical mule deer antlers<\/a>.<\/p>\n Whitetail antlers are generally lighter in color, straighter, and more uniform. They also tend to be smaller on average than mule deer antlers. Mule deer fanatics love the bucks\u2019 tendencies to grow nontypical racks full of drop tines, kickers, palmated tines, and other funky features. While nontypical whitetails<\/a> are also fully capable of that kind of rack, they\u2019re more likely to be missing or carrying an extra tine on one side than they are to have the messy, errant growth that nontypical mule deer<\/a> have. <\/p>\n In terms of color, both deer species are generally more red-brown in the summer and they lose their redness in the fall and winter as they turn gray. Mule deer get slightly more gray than whitetails do, but it\u2019s really hard to notice that unless you see the two species standing side-by-side in the same light. <\/p>\n Mule deer will get a little bigger than whitetails, especially leading up to the rut. Mule deer bucks can weigh around 330 pounds, about 30 pounds more than their heaviest white-tailed counterparts. Both species have white bellies and white on the insides of their legs.<\/p>\n The tail should be the last body part you use to identify the species\u2014especially if you don\u2019t want to wait to see the deer running away from you. That said, identifying a calm deer by its rump is a useful way to differentiate between the species.<\/p>\n Mule deer have fluffy, cream-colored rumps with a short, white tail that ends in a black tuft. Sometimes you can see the faint edges of a white rear-end on a broadside view of the deer, but not always. Luckily, the white rump with the little black tuft is a pretty clear signal in mule deer country, so even if it\u2019s walking away from you, it\u2019s easy to pick out against a sagebrush sea from hundreds of yards away.<\/p>\n Whitetail deer don\u2019t reveal their namesake until they flag their flap-like tails. When that tail is down, the outside blends with the rest of the deer\u2019s body color and just a few tufts of white hair might be visible around the edges. But when a whitetail decides to get gone, the tail raises straight up in the air to reveal the shock-white fur for which they\u2019re named. By the time that happens, your chances of eating tag soup tend to go up.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no right or wrong way to ensure what deer species you\u2019re staring at. By checking out the whole picture and sizing up the face and ears first, followed by antlers (if there are any), you should be able to make an accurate identification without needing a glimpse at the tail. The more you deer hunt and the more deer you see, the better you\u2019ll get at identifying mule deer versus whitetail.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nMule Deer vs. Whitetail: Face<\/h2>\n
Mule Deer vs. Whitetail: Ears<\/h2>\n
![\"mule](\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fesajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com%2Fcms%2Fasset%2F8fdd4b7f-24c9-4693-b5c2-efc902691047%2Fecs22815-fig-0001-m.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fesajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com%2Fdoi%2Ffull%2F10.1002%2Fecs2.2815&tbnid=CatOD_oYkKMsHM&vet=12ahUKEwjQ7LWE3JP9AhVEB0QIHQbiBhwQMygFegUIARCLAg..i&docid=r3HAb7G_vpNhMM&w=1843&h=1138&q=mule%20deer%20whitetail%20map&ved=2ahUKEwjQ7LWE3JP9AhVEB0QIHQbiBhwQMygFegUIARCLAg\")
Mule Deer vs. Whitetail: Antlers<\/h2>\n
Mule Deer vs. Whitetail: Body<\/h2>\n
Mule Deer vs. Whitetail: Tail<\/h2>\n
The Best Way to Tell a Mule Deer from a Whitetail Deer<\/h2>\n