Odocoileus

Odocoileus is a genus of medium-sized deer (family Cervidae) containing three species native to the Americas.^[1][3][4] The name, sometimes spelled odocoeleus, is a contraction of the Greek root odont-^[5][6], meaning "tooth," and -coelus, New Latin for "hollow".

Odocoileus Temporal range: Pleistocene to present
Odocoileus virginianus
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Artiodactyla
Family:	Cervidae
Subfamily:	Capreolinae
Tribe:	Odocoileini
Genus:	Odocoileus Rafinesque, 1832[1]
Type species
Odocoileus speleus[1] Rafinesque, 1832
Species
Odocoileus hemionus Odocoileus pandora Odocoileus virginianus †Odocoileus lucasi †Odocoileus salinae[2]

Extant species

	Odocoileus hemionus	Mule deer	western half of North America.
	Odocoileus pandora	Yucatan brown brocket	Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize)
	Odocoileus virginianus	White-tailed deer	throughout most of the continental United States, southern Canada, Mexico, Central America, and northern portions of South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia.[7]

History

The genus Odocoileus was named by French zoologist, Constantine S. Rafinesque, in 1832, based on teeth and part of a jaw (presumably of Odocoileus virginianus) gathered by a Mr. Wardel from an anonymous cave in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on the banks of the Conococheague Creek, and kept in the collection of a Mr. Hayden of Baltimore. Rafinesque could refer these teeth to no other living animal known to him, despite having then lived in native white-tailed deer habitat for decades (although the white-tailed deer had been previously described in the literature, between 1850 and 1900 the white-tailed deer population was reduced to 300,000 to 500,000 individuals, found only in remote locations inaccessible to humans^[8]). Rafinesque described enamel that covered the tooth, including the hollow inside, and named the species Odocoileus speleus, for "teeth well hollowed" and speleus referring to a cave.^[9][10][11]