English: One of Argonne's famous white deer makes a rare appearance on a misty morning.

Visitors to Argonne National Laboratory are sometimes startled by the white deer roaming the site and occasionally speculate on the nature of the experiment that produced their unusual coloring.

But the deer are perfectly normal fallow deer (Dama dama), a naturally light-colored species native to North Africa, Europe and parts of Asia. There are about 40 on the Argonne site. Today’s herd began with eight or nine white deer that Gustav Freund, inventor of “skinless” casings for hot dogs, received or purchased from Chicago clothier Maurice L. Rothschild.