I hope I got this in the correct area.

Since I'm just starting to learn leather craft, I am researching everything I can. One of the problems I have come up against is the types of leather we have here in the US that are readily available VS traditional leathers from Scotland and how nobody I have found deals with the topic...

I did some research on it and found it very eye opening, at least for me. This may be old news, but I didn't find it in any of the searches here. I may just be daft though.

The first question is this, is most of the traditional Scottish leather items made from the Red Deer? I can't tell for sure. If not, then this whole thing is just scientific twaddle.

Next thing is the actual scientific classification of each. Oddly enough, the Elk/Wapiti is very close.
Kingdom down to Family are all the same. With Family being Cervidae. From there the classifications go to Sub family, Genus and Species.

Here is the boring/fun stuff.
Sub family; US deer(White and Mule) W & M - Capreolinae. Red AND Elk - Cervinae.

Genus; USD W & M - Odocoileus. Red AND Elk - Cervus.

Species; USD W - O. Virginianus, M - O. Hemionus. Red - C. Elephus (funny name) and Elk - C. Canadensis.


The questions this leaves me with are these;
Does Elk and Red leathers have the same grain pattern?
Are the natural colors the same when tanned?
Is the thickness and feel the same?