Odocoileus

Odocoileus is a genus of medium-sized deer containing three species native to the Americas. The name, sometimes spelled odocoeleus, is a contraction of the Greek root odont-, meaning "tooth," and -coelus, New Latin for "hollow".

Extant species

History

The genus Odocoileus was named by French zoologist, Constantine S. Rafinesque, in 1832, based on teeth and part of a jaw 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. 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''.''