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Richard F. Collins 
Fig. 1. Representative bilateral agenesis of second premolar (P 2 ) in a White-tailed 
deer (AEL #1 103) from Dorchester County, Maryland. 
ing one or both mandibles was noted in only 5 of 422 ( 1 .2%) White-tailed 
deer from New York (Free et al. 1972), and 8 of 401 (2.0%) White-tails 
from northern Minnesota (Mech et al. 1970). This anomaly also has been 
described in Roe deer, Capreolus capreolus, by Meyer ( 1977). It is interest- 
ing that this anomaly apparently did not occur among 33,337 White-tailed 
deer examined over a 3-year period in Michigan (Ryel 1963). Although 
from a limited sample, the occurrence of this characteristic in 16.7 percent 
of the White-tailed deer examined from Dorchester County suggests the 
trait may be well established in this population. 
Missing second premolars probably were not detrimental to the overall 
condition or survival of the individual deer (Pekelharing 1968). Body 
weights and standard measurements from two anomalous animals from 
the 1978 sample were comparable to those animals with normal dentition. 
Weights and measurements of the remaining three anomalous animals 
were not available. This lends support to the suggestion of previous 
investigators (Manville 1963, Smith et al. 1977) that dental anomalies, 
although of intrinsic interest, probably are of little significance to the total 
dynamics of the population. 
