Increasing size of antlers year on year in different European game species, 1891 illustration As a result of their fast growth rate, antlers are considered a handicap since there is an immense nutritional demand on deer to re-grow antlers annually, and thus can be honest signals of metabolic efficiency and food gathering capability. In most cases, the bone at the base is destroyed by osteoclasts and the antlers fall off at some point. This dead bone structure is the mature antler.
DEVIL HORN SPIKE DEER FULL
Once the antler has achieved its full size, the velvet is lost and the antler's bone dies.
Growth occurs at the tip, and is initially cartilage, which is later replaced by bone tissue. Antlers are considered one of the most exaggerated cases of male secondary sexual traits in the animal kingdom, and grow faster than any other mammal bone.
DEVIL HORN SPIKE DEER SKIN
While an antler is growing, it is covered with highly vascular skin called velvet, which supplies oxygen and nutrients to the growing bone. Velvet covers a growing antler, providing blood flow that supplies oxygen and nutrients.Įach antler grows from an attachment point on the skull called a pedicle. The "horns" of a pronghorn (which is not a cervid but a giraffoid) meet some of the criteria of antlers, but are not considered true antlers because they contain keratin. Nevertheless, fertile does from other species of deer have the capacity to produce antlers on occasion, usually due to increased testosterone levels. Only reindeer (known as caribou in North America) have antlers on the females, and these are normally smaller than those of the males. A horn's interior of bone is covered by an exterior sheath made of keratin (the same material as human fingernails and toenails).Īntlers are usually found only on males. In contrast to antlers, horns-found on pronghorns and bovids, such as sheep, goats, bison and cattle-are two-part structures that usually do not shed. The musk deer, which are not true cervids, also bear tusks in place of antlers. However, one modern species (the water deer) has tusks and no antlers and the muntjacs have small antlers and tusks. In most species, antlers appear to replace tusks. The ancestors of deer had tusks (long upper canine teeth). Structure and development Male fallow deer fighting Two sambar deer fighting, Silvassa, IndiaĪntlers are unique to cervids. Etymology Īntler comes from the Old French antoillier (see present French : "Andouiller", from ant-, meaning before, oeil, meaning eye and -ier, a suffix indicating an action or state of being) possibly from some form of an unattested Latin word *anteocularis, "before the eye" (and applied to the word for "branch" or " horn" ). Antlers are shed and regrown each year and function primarily as objects of sexual attraction and as weapons. They are generally found only on males, with the exception of reindeer/caribou. Antlers are a single structure composed of bone, cartilage, fibrous tissue, skin, nerves, and blood vessels. Mature red deer stag, Denmark Red deer at the beginning of the growing seasonĪntlers are extensions of an animal's skull found in members of the Cervidae (deer) family. For other uses, see Antler (disambiguation). This article is about the antlers of deer and related species.
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