A white-tailed deer was found stumbling through the streets of Farragut, Tennessee, with thick hair growing from both eyeballs.
The hair protruded from the discs of flesh that covered both the buck’s cornea – the transparent part of the eye that covers the iris and pupil.
The bizarre condition called corneal dermoids has been documented in only one other whitetail in the state of Tennessee. Quality Whitetails magazine, the magazine of the National Deer Association.
A dermoid, by definition, is a type of benign tumor made from tissues commonly found in other parts of the body; in this case skin tissue complete with hair follicles surfaced in the deer’s cornea.
The furry-eyed deer “might be able to tell day from dark, but I wouldn’t think it could see where it was going,” said Sterling Daniels, a wildlife biologist with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA). Quality Whitetails
‘I would compare it to covering your eyes with a washcloth. You could see it from night and day, but that’s about it. ‘
The same deer tested positive for epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD), which can cause fever, severe tissue swelling and loss of fear in humans, according to the Cornell Wildlife Health Lab.
This may explain why the disoriented animal walked into a suburban street in late August 2020 and seemed oblivious to the people around, Quality Whitetails reported.
However, the disease does not explain why tufts of hair emerged from the deer’s eyes.
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The hairy patches of skin probably formed early in the animal’s development while it was still in the womb, Dr. Nicole Nemeth, associate professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of Georgia school veterinarian’s Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study unit (SCWDS), told Quality Whitetails
Rather than successfully developing into a clear cornea, the tissue instead formed skin and hair follicles, obscuring the growing deer’s eyes.
Under the thick hair, the deer’s eyes contain the expected anatomy.
Despite being born with corneal dermoids, the goat had lived to over a year and even bred its first antlers before getting EHD, which has no treatment. Quality Whitetails reported.
Because the deer survived so long, Nemeth said the dermoids likely “evolved gradually,” allowing the animal to adapt to its diminishing field of vision over time.
“How fast [dermoids] develop over time is probably not well known and may vary from case to case, ”said Nemeth Quality Whitetails
People can also develop dermoids in their eyes, which causes hair to grow on their eyeballs, Live Science previously reported. The condition is rare, so an ophthalmologist can only see one or two cases in their entire career.
Not all of these dermoids cover the center of the cornea like deer; some dermoids form at the junction of the cornea and the white part of the eye called the sclera.
In this case, the condition can cause blurred vision, but it doesn’t usually cause extreme vision problems, Live Science reported.
The dermoids can be removed for cosmetic reasons, but removing them does not usually improve the patient’s vision.
(You can read more about the furry-eyed deer case at Quality Whitetails magazine.)
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This article was originally published by Live Science. Read the original article here.