I have always been sort’ve fascinated by the phenomenon of antlered does–about one in ten thousand female deer gets some genetic scrambling, and gets born with antlers. (I attempted to write a story about this once, which foundered utterly when I attempted to come up with a workable deer society. Deer really are vicious sexist bastards who keep harems, and I would sooner rip out my own tongue and nail it, flapping, to the wall than be responsible for more crappy kill-the-male-oppressors-with-your-unconventional-sexuality fantasy.) Some of the deer are males with undescended schtuff and some extra equipage, but a number of them are honest-to-god females who have fawns and all the rest, and just happen to develop antlers. These are usually weird or deformed, but anyway, it always struck me as neat, and maybe one day I’ll figure out some way to incorperate an antlered doe character into something more than a single painting.

None of that, however, is nearly as creepy as this: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/08/0825_030825_carnivorousdeer.html

While part of me says “Hey, ain’t nature grand and adaptable?” the rest of me is going “Eeeehghgh.” Deers eating meat, even for such an excellent reason, seems like some kind of fundamental violation of the Way Things Ought To Be. (I know that there isn’t such a thing–there’s just The Way Things Are, So Deal With It, but still. Brrr.)