I fingered the vagina of a dyke today.

A dead dyke.

I admit it...that is just there as Google bait. And maybe to get a quick rise out of Badsnake and her family. But I actually did put my finger in the vagina of a dead female who looked and acted like a male.

'Course she was an antelope.

Family came though the check station early in the afternoon with two antelope. The daughter's first, and a smaller "buck" taken by the mother.

Dad immediately points out the wife's antelope did not have a penis. Or testicles.

Now this critter is sporting a full sized black cheek patch, although a little faint, and 9-10" horns with full prong. She/he was running in a band of five other bucks.

Mentioned that some breeds of dog have problems with the balls not descending into the sac, which got the mom definitively stating it did not have any "penis" or "testicles." With stress on those two terms.

I finally caught on that we were supposed to use technical, biological lingo here, in front of the young teen.

Okay, I can do that.

But it had been properly gutted, and if it had had the male equipment, there is no way you could get that done without finding it. So I accept the fact that it didn't have any.

Asked if it had any of the female sex organs, and they hadn't paid attention to that. Except to note it had four small nipples.

Fine, but most bucks do. Just like humans (only two, not four).

We hauled the animal out of the truck to get some pics, and I took the opportunity to examine the pelvis.

He hadn't done as fine a job of gutting as I suspected. Normal procedure calls for either a) splitting the pelvis so you can pull out the rectum and urethra (and vagina if it's female) or b) neatly trimming around the anus (and labia if female) and pulling them through the pelvic channel out with the rest of the guts (I'm sorry...entrails. Hope none of you just ate.)

He had neglected to do that.

No external sex organs, but squeezed in between the rectum and the pelvic bones was a flat, white, convoluted linear organ.

A vagina.

So, this male-looking antelope was actually a doe.

Heard of that being encountered at least once before, not far from here in the early 1980s. Hunter shot a doe with dark cheek patch and 13" horns. And tagged it with a doe license.

Warden asked him how he knew it was a doe before he shot it?

"Saw it squat and pee."

Really.

I would not be so confident.

So now I finally got to see a hermaphroditic antelope (I have seen two mule deer does with antlers, but that seems to be a little more common).

But that wasn't the point of this entry, (that was mainly because wife dared me to use that introduction...so I did).

Mom and dad reloaded the unusual antelope and closed up the truck without letting me check the daughter's goat.

Her first antelope, remember?

So I asked to bring it back out.

Nice buck, one of the best of the day. Single shot, through the vitals. Good to see with a new hunter, and usually important to them for you to notice.

So I did.

And of course checked all her paperwork, and her Hunter Safety card. Young hunters seem to be offended if you don't ask for it.

Sort of "Why did I spend all those hours learning this stuff if nobody ever checks to see if I passed?"

As they were loading back into the truck, I congratulated her on her hunt.

Mom, preoccupied with putting licenses back into her pack and thinking about her own unique hunt, quickly said "Oh, thank you."

But the daughter knew I was looking at her.