Forensic scientists have caught a deer munching on human remains for the first time ever.

The animal was snapped gnawing on bones by a motion-sensitive camera set up by researchers in Texas.

Footage captured the deer nibbling at rotting corpses inside a 26-acre “body farm” – a section of woodland designed to allow researchers to watch cadavers decompose and discover which animals they attract.

Raccoons, turkeys, foxes and vultures are typically seen feasting on the bodies.

But this is the first time a white-tailed deer – widely believed to be a herbivore – has been captured munching on human remains.

The corpse had been outside for 182 days.

Experts from the Forensic Anthropology Research Facility at Texas State University watched as the animal held “the bone in its mouth like a cigar” on two occasions in January 2015.

A paper recently published in the Journal of Forensic Scientists, claimed this was the “first known photographic evidence of deer gnawing human remains.”

It added the deer was likely chewing on the bones because it was deficient in minerals and that they had no evidence it had eaten any flesh.

It’s thought deer probably chomp on animal bones during winter to “obtain minerals absent in their diet” like calcium, sodium and phosphorous.

What do deer eat?