A whitetail deer was found walking through the streets of Farragut, Tennessee, with thick hair growing out of both his eyebrows.
The hair protruding from fleshy discs covered both the cornea of the buck – the prominent part of the eye that covers the iris and the pupil.
The strange condition, known as corneal dermoids, was recorded in just one other whitetail in the state of Tennessee, according to Quality Whitetails magazine, journal of the National Deer Association.
Dermoid, by definition, is a type of inflammatory tumor made up of figs that usually occurs in other parts of the body; in this case, a skin full of hair follicles is built up in the cornea of the deer.
The deer with eyes could “tell the day from dark, but I wouldn’t think it would be possible to see where it was going,” said Sterling Daniels, a wildlife biologist at Resources Group Tennessee Wildlife Service (TWRA). Quality Whitetails.
“I’d compare it to covering your eyes with laundry. You could tell day and night, but that’s about it.”
The same deer tested positive for epizootic hemorrhagic fever (EHD), which can cause fever, extreme tightness, and loss of human fear, according to the Cornell Wildlife Health Laboratory.
This may explain why the animal was taken into a suburban street in late August 2020 and seemingly unaware of the people nearby, Quality Whitetails recitation.
However, the disease does not explain why deer ‘s eyes exploded in tufts of hair.
Related: Survival of the grossest: 8 offensive animal behaviors
The pieces of skin hair may have been formed early in the animal’s development, while still in the womb, Dr. Nicole Nemeth, associate professor in the Department of Pathology at the Co. Wildlife Disease Research Unit Southeastern Vocational School (SCWDS) of a University of Georgia school veterinarian, reported Quality Whitetails.
Instead of successfully developing into a clear cornea, the pile created skin and hair follicles, keeping an eye on growing deer eyes.
Beneath the thick hair, all the expected anatomy was in deer eyes.
Despite being born with corneal dermoids, the buck had survived to be over a year old and even developed the first set of caber before he contracted EHD, which has no treatment, Quality Whitetails recitation.
Since the deer lasted so long, Nemeth said the dermoids may have been “gradually improving,” allowing the animal to adapt to the field of vision that diminishes over time.
“How soon [dermoids] evolve over time that few may know and can change from case to case, “said Nemeth Quality Whitetails.
Humans can develop dermoids in the eyes, too, causing hair to grow on their eyelids, a previously reported Living Science said. The condition is very rare, so an ophthalmologist may only see one or two cases in their entire career.
Not all of these dermoids cover the middle of the cornea, as in the case of deer; some dermoids form at the cross-section of the cornea and the white part of the eye, called the sclera.
In this case, the condition can cause blurred vision but usually does not cause real vision problems, Live Science said.
The dermoids can be removed for cosmic reasons, but the removal usually does not improve a patient’s vision.
(You can read more about the deer deer issue at Quality Whitetails iris.)
Related Content
13 feet of a very strange animal
Sorry animal moms! 8 extreme creature birth
10 amazing things you didn’t know about animals
This article was originally published by Live Science. Read the original article here.