Whitetails and Canine Teeth

Here's a story I wrote for the April 2010 issue of Ohio Valley Times.  Since writing this story, I've discovered canine teeth on at least two more bucks.  Maybe they're more common than we think.

 

 

 

Whitetails and Canine Teeth

By Ralph Scherder

 

            Whitetailed deer have 32 teeth – 8 incisors, 12 premolars, and 12 molars.  Typically.

Recently I was cleaning and bleaching a deer skull and noticed something unusual.  Protruding from the top part of the skull were two canine teeth, one on each side.  Both of them were less than an inch in length.  And unlike the other teeth in the skull, which were sharp, both canine teeth were dull and rounded in appearance.

The first time I noticed upper canine teeth on a deer was from a buck killed in Iowa in 2001.  That particular deer was aged at 7 ½ years old.  At first I thought its age might have played a factor in the development of such teeth.  Since then, however, I’ve discovered upper canine teeth on much younger bucks, and even yearlings – approximately a dozen examples in the past 10 years.  Internet research supports my thinking that upper canine teeth in whitetails are merely genetic oddities.  (Note:  It’s important to keep in mind that lower canine teeth are normal in all whitetails.) 

The whitetailed deer (odocoileus virginianus) is a product of the Pleiocene epoch, which occurred roughly 2.6 to 5.2 million years ago.  Whitetails as we know them today arrived on the scene approximately 3.5 million years ago, and they are a species that has remained relatively unchanged since.  However, the ancestors of other members of the deer family could indicate why such phenomena as upper canine teeth occasionally appear in whitetails.  Elk, for instance, are the most common deer in North America to have upper canine teeth, often referred to as “the ivories” by hunters. 

There’s little doubt that upper canine teeth in whitetails are a periodic reminder of the species’ ancestral origins, which dates back tens of millions of years ago to deer in Asia (probably the same ancestors as that of the Muntjac, a species that also has prominent upper canine teeth found in males only).

How often these reminders occur in today’s whitetails is up for debate.  In the Winter 2002 issue of the Quality Deer Management Association’s magazine, executive director Brian Murphy explained that “the exact prevalence of upper canines in whitetails is not known, [but] it is believed to be well below 1 percent.” (qdma.com)  Oddly enough, upper canine teeth seem to gain in prevalence in the southern part of the whitetail’s range.

Another factor to keep in mind as to the rarity of upper canine teeth in whitetails is this:  only in the past 10 to 15 years have hunters become conscious of deer management by saving jawbones for aging, etc.  Before then, a higher percentage of hunters simply cut the antlers off of buck and discarded the rest of the skull without a second thought.  Because some upper canine teeth are so small that they barely break through the gum line on many deer, it’s possible that they went unnoticed.

Considering this, it’s easy to see that the occurrence of upper canine teeth is even less documented in does than it is in bucks.  After all, how often do hunters actually look at the teeth of antlerless deer they’ve harvested?

In fact, an article written by Gordon Whittington on NorthAmericanWhitetail.com states that “when the right buck and doe mate, the trait (upper canine teeth) can show up in their offspring.  At least, it can in the male progeny.”  It was reported that does never grow upper canines but possess the potential to pass the trait along to future generations.

Perhaps the main reason for this belief is due to the reasons stated above.  Whoever thought to look?  Also, given that upper canine teeth appear in only the males of Muntjacs, it seemed likely that they might also appear in only whitetail bucks.

However, my friend Bethe recently sent me a photo of a doe she harvested on the last day of Pennsylvania’s rifle season two years ago.  Upon cleaning the skull, she discovered that it also had upper canine teeth.  A rare find, indeed.  And she might not have even found them if she hadn’t decided to clean the skull as a gift to a young hunter she was mentoring at the time.

While it’s still unknown exactly how often upper canines appear in does as compared to bucks, it’s possible that it’s more often than previously thought.  It’s likely that they occur just as frequently.  The only way we may ever know is if hunters begin examining does that are harvested as diligently as they examine bucks. 

 What does the presence of upper canines in whitetails mean?  Not much in terms of the overall health of the population.  They’re just another oddity found in an amazing species that never fails to entertain.