Arthur Dunn, who is always on the lookout for nature, spotted this trio of white- tailed deer in Buttonwoods recently. He’d seen piebald deer before, but photographed this one among its cousins. We contacted Dylan Ferreira, senior wildlife biologist at the state Department of Environmental Management, to see how unusual it is to see a piebald deer and ask what causes the spotted fur. Ferreira provided the following information: Piebald deer are the result of a rare genetic mutation that causes random patches of skin to lack the specialized pigment cells that give deer hair its color. Even the skin beneath the white hair lacks color. …. Across the whitetail’s range, around one in 1,000 deer are piebald.   Submitted photo by Arthur Dunn