A rare curious creature with a distinctive look has been caught on camera exploring the woods in Pennsylvania.
Trail cam footage captured by PixCams in Murrysville showed a deer with unique white splotches on its back calmly roaming through the trees.
Known as Piebald deer, these unusual animals make up less than 1 percent of the entire white-tailed deer population, according to the National Deer Association.
Bill Powers, PixCams Inc. President told CBS: We see a lot of deer, we have never seen a piebald deer here.
I know other people have seen them throughout the state. Theyre just not that common. But its just a very kind of wild oddity to see this, especially when you see a buck. It just makes a little bit more special when you see something like that.
A Piebald deer was captured on video as it explored Pennsylvania woods
These ultra rare animals are often mistaken for albino deer.
But they are born with a genetic condition that gives them white fur patches and can also have skeletal deformities such as crooked legs, hooves or spines.
One in every 1,000 deer has the genetic condition, while 1 out of every 30,000 is albino, according to the National Deer Association.
Deer that are melanistic, a condition that causes an animals body to produce higher than usual amounts of melanin, are the rarest of all, the association added.
Under the Facebook post of the trail cam video, many people shared their excitement about this type of deer being spotted in Pennsylvania.
I saw a mom with her two fawns and one was piebald fawn. I feel lucky and blessed to have seen it and now I watch for it in hopes to get a good pictures of him or her, one woman wrote.
Others chimed in, saying how amazing, cool and beautiful piebald deer are.
Thats an opportunity to seize and to really appreciate, Travis Lau, Pennsylvania Game Commissions communications director, told CBS.
Illinois, Iowa, Tennessee, Minnesota and Wisconsin have made it illegal to hunt albino or piebald deer. But it is legal to do so in Pennsylvania.
Piebald deer have distinctive white splotches that mean they are often confused with albino deer (stock image)
Piebald deer may have deformities in their legs, hooves and spines (stock image)
Lau told CBS: From a management perspective, I dont think that theres any reason to discourage the harvest of piebald deer. I think that comes down to a matter of preference for a hunter who has an opportunity to take one.
Its no different than with any other deer in terms of the need to manage the population in balance with its habitat.
The Deer Association explained that hunting deer with the piebald trait will not fix the genetic issue, as it is a recessive trait so not every deer carrying the gene presents it.
Its obviously open to predation more so than a lot of species are. And, of course, the hunters kind of view that as a trophy. But I just hope that somebody would respect it and leave it for other people to watch, Powers said.