News 5 photojournalist Mike Vielhaber was driving in Pepper Pike, Ohio around midnight when he spotted a couple of rare piebald deer near the Chagrin and Lander traffic circle.
“A rare piebald deer was spotted in Pepper Pike on Monday,” News 5 said.
He whipped out his camera and took a few pictures of the beautiful creatures eating grass under some trees. He later shared those pictures on Twitter, letting the public know what he had seen.
“I read that less than 2% of deer will end up with this trait. Pretty cool,” Mike wrote on Twitter.
A spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Jamey Emmert, said that they get reports from time to time about many different species of wildlife with uncommon colors in their fur or feathers.
“I wouldn’t call piebald deer common by any means, but it’s not unusual for us to get a few calls every year from people inquiring about them because they saw one and was curious about it,” Jamey told News 5.
According to QDMA, a nonprofit wildlife conservation organization, about 1 to 2 percent of deer get piebaldism. It’s a rare genetic anomaly that turns a whitetail deer’s coat white. Piebaldism can also cause other deformities in skeletal alignment that give the animal twisted legs and malformed hooves.