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A pair of horns on a male impala Anatomy of an animal's horn. A horn is a permanent pointed projection on the head of various animals that consists of a covering of keratin and other proteins surrounding a core of live bone. Horns are distinct from antlers, which are not permanent.
Antler 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) [3] [4] possibly from some form of an unattested Latin word *anteocularis, "before the eye" [5] (and applied to the word for "branch" or "horn" [4]).
True horns are found mainly among: Ruminant artiodactyls. Antilocapridae ; Bovidae (cattle, goats, antelopes etc.). Giraffidae: Giraffids have a pair of skin covered bony bumps on their heads, called ossicones. Cervidae: Most deer have antlers, which are not true horns due to lacking a bone core and made of keratin.
The other major difference is that antlers undergo an annual cycle of shedding and growth, whereas horns are normally kept for the animal’s entire lifespan (though the pronghorn is an exception ...
Similar to species with horns or antlers, male giraffes use their ossicones as weapons during combat, where they use their heads as clubs: the ossicones add weight and concentrate the force of impact onto a small area, allowing it to deliver heavier blows with higher contact pressure. [4]
Rhinoceros horns, unlike those of other horned mammals, consist only of keratin. These horns rest on the nasal ridge of the animal's skull. Antlers are unique to cervids and found mostly on males: the only cervid females with antlers are caribou and reindeer, whose antlers are normally smaller than males
female reindeer with antlers. It's always easy to tell bucks from does in many of the deer species, because bucks (male deer) have antlers and does (female deer) don't.
Most modern pecorans (with the exception of the Moschidae) have one of four types of cranial appendages: horns, antlers, ossicones, or pronghorns. [6] True horns have a bone core that is covered in a permanent sheath of keratin. They are indicative of Bovidae. Horns develop in the periosteum over the frontal bone, and can be curved or straight. [4]