Status Of The Name Odocoileus Hemionus Crooki (Mammalia : Cervidae)

—The present name of the desert mule deer {Odocoileus hemionus crooki) is based on a specimen collected in southwestern New Mexico near the Mexican border. This specimen was originally described as a new species (Dorcelaphus crooki) of black-tailed deer, not as a mule deer, because many of its characteristics are intermediate between mule deer and white-tailed deer. In the same publication, Dorcelaphus hemionus eremicus is described from western Sonora, Mexico, as a new subspecies of desert mule deer. A number of mammalogists believed the type specimen of crooki to be a hybrid between desert mule deer and Coues white-tailed deer (O. virginianus couesi), while others hypothesized it represented extremes of normal variation in mule deer. I have reassessed the type specimen of Dorcelaphus crooki and reaffirm that it is a hybrid, invalidating the use of the crooki subspecies name. Consequently, the oldest available name for the desert mule deer is O. h. eremicus. Resumen. —El nombre actual del venado bura del desierto (Odocoileus hemionus crooki) se basa en un ejemplar colectado en el suroeste de Nuevo Mexico cerca de la frontera con Mexico. E. A. Mearns describio este ejemplar como una nueva especie (Dorcelaphus crooki) de venado cola negra, no como un venado bura, debido a que muchos de sus caracteres son intermedios entre los del venado cola blanca y los del venado bura. En la misma publicacion, Mearns describio tambien a Dorcelaphus hemionus eremicus del occidente de Sonora, Mexico, como una nueva subespecie de venado bura del desierto. Un gran numero de mastozoologos ha considerado que el ejemplar tipo de crooki es un hibrido entre el venado bura del desierto y el venado cola blanca de Coues (O. virginianus couesi), mientras que otros han hipotetizado que representaba extremos de la variacion normal del venado bura. Despues de reevaluar el ejemplar tipo de Dorcelaphus crooki concluyo que es en realidad un hibrido. Por lo tanto, el nombre valido mas antiguo para el venado bura del desierto es O. h. eremicus. Desert mule deer (presently known as cific name of this taxon has been contenOdocoileus hemionus crooki Mearns, 1897) tious due to uncertainties regarding the hyinhabit the southwestern United States from brid status of the type specimen. West Texas through southern New Mexico and southern Arizona, and southward into Historical Review Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Zacatecas, and Durango, Mexico (Leopold 1959, CowMearns (1897) described Dorcelaphus an 1961, Wallmo 1981). In addition, a small crooki as a new species of black-tailed deer herd has been translocated to Nuevo Leon, because of its similarity to the Columbian Mexico (Morrison et al. 1992; Fig. 1). black-tailed deer (O. h. columbianus). The Since its original description, the subspetype specimen (National Museum of Natu320 PROCEEDINGSOF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON Fig. 1 . Current distribution of desert mule deer in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Type localities identified for a) Dorcelaphus hemionus eremicus Mearns, 1897; b) Dorcelphus crooki Mearns, 1897; and c) Odocoileus hemionus canus Merriam, 1901. ral History [USNM] 20572/35752) was collected in 1892 by E. A. Mearns on the summit of the Dog Mountains, Hidalgo County (formerly part of Grant Co.), New Mexico during the survey of the boundary between Mexico and the United States. No other deer with similar characteristics were collected at or near that locality. In the same publication Mearns (1897) described the "Burro deer or desert mule deer," Dorcelaphus hemionus eremicus based on a male (USNM 63403, the type) collected in 1895 by W. J. McGee in the Sierra Seri, Sonora, Mexico. McGee did not keep the skull, but processed the hide as a deer skin rug. Mearns (1897) described the subspecies as pale gray in color with short pelage, a dark dorsal stripe, paler forehead markings, and wide, heavy antlers. This description was based on the skin of the male and two sets of antlers, each from different deer; one of which came from the Sonoyta Valley, Sonora (USNM 59910), the other from Black Butte, Baja California (USNM 60855). Pieces of skin trimmed from the hide as it was made into a rug comprised the only material representing the type specimen in the National Museum until 1902 when the rug was acquired from Anita McGee (Poole & Schantz 1942). In 1901, Merriam described Odocoileus hemionus canus based on a male (USNM 99361) from Sierra en Medio, Chihuahua, Mexico. Merriam (1901) distinguished O. h. canus from the western subspecies O. h. eremicus solely on the basis of antler conformation. The Sierra en Medio lies only 40 VOLUME113, NUMBER1 321 km southwest of the type locality for Dorcelaphus crooki in New Mexico. In his list of big game of North America, and replacing Dorcelaphus with the correct senior synonym Odocoileus, Seton (1898: 286) included O. h. eremicus as a subspecies of mule deer, but maintained the "Crook black-tailed deer" as O. crooki. Lydekker (1915) also listed this animal as a black-tailed deer, O. columbianus crooki. Following Merriam's (1901) description, O. h. canus was used for the desert mule deer in West Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and northcentral Mexico (Seton 1909, Lantz 1910, Lydekker 1915, Bailey 1931, Cowan 1936, Cahalane 1939, Dalquest 1953). Several mammalogists believed that crooki was based on a hybrid between Coues white-tailed deer {p. virginianus couesi) and a desert mule deer but lacked known hybrids for comparison (Lydekker 1898, Seton 1929, Bailey 1931, O'Conner 1939). Goldman & Kellogg (1939) examined the holotype of O. h. canus and other specimens from the Sierra en Medio, Chihuahua, along with the holotype of Dorcelaphus crooki, and concluded that the type of crooki was an unusual specimen of mule deer and not a hybrid. Because the name crooki antedates canus, they adopted O. h. crooki as the correct name for desert mule deer in the north-central states of Mexico and adjacent Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Hoffmeister (1962) also re-examined the type of crooki and compared it with specimens of O. virginianus and O. hemionus. He interpreted the specimen as simply a mule deer with some features that were intermediate with or shared by white-