So what is the "natural" colour of Fallow? Common, menil, melanistic?
Common is the true colour for both the species of Dama.
The regularity of colour variations are the result of selection by humans.
I find nothing worse than looking at a herd of fallow & seeing several colours, its a bit like looking at the colour varients in a herd of farmer Browns cows.
It really shows how domesticated fallow deer are.
Persians. Now these have a completly different attitude in their pure form to the Anatolian's . Common is the "only" colour as they haven't been domesticated to the same degree.
"Have you seen any of these?"
There are no indigenious deer in aust, But we do have "Australian deer", sambar would qualify the most for this title.
Given their several sources of ancestory, selection by heavy hunting for 150 years, naturalisation into the environment (any ecological/environmental change has already occured in their range), many like to refer to our sambar as "Cervus unicolor australis" , its a thought which is gaining popularity.
Cheers Sharkey