Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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. [12] Increasing size of antlers year on year in different European game species, 1891 illustration
The sexes can be distinguished from each other by the size and shape of their antlers. Male antlers grow more branching points and measure anywhere between 39 inches and 53 inches in beam length ...
Antlers are considered one of the most exaggerated cases of male secondary sexual traits in the animal kingdom, [63] and grow faster than any other mammal bone. [64] Growth occurs at the tip, initially as cartilage that is then mineralized to become bone. Once the antler has achieved its full size, the velvet is lost and the antler's bone dies.
Antlers grow very quickly every year on the bulls. As the antlers grow, they are covered in thick velvet, filled with blood vessels and spongy in texture. The antler velvet of the barren-ground caribou and the boreal woodland caribou is dark chocolate brown. [126] The velvet that covers growing antlers is a highly vascularised skin.
Males grow longer and thicker antlers which they use for fighting. Their antlers can grow to be as large as 51 inches long, whereas a female's antlers only grow to around 20 inches long. Another ...
Antlers typically measure 71 cm (28 in) in total length and weigh 1 kg (2.2 lb), although large ones can grow to 115 cm (45 in) and weigh 5 kg (11 lb). [8] Antlers, which are made of bone, can grow at a rate of 2.5 cm (1 in) a day. [ 11 ]
When fully developed, antlers are dead bone without a horn or skin covering; they are borne only by adults (usually males, except for reindeer) and are shed and regrown each year. Rhinocerotidae: The "horns" of rhinoceroses are made of keratin, the same substance as fingernails, and grow continuously, but do not have a bone core.
The mule deer's tail is black-tipped, whereas the white-tailed deer's is not. Mule deer antlers are bifurcated; they "fork" as they grow, rather than branching from a single main beam, as is the case with white-tails. Each spring, a buck's antlers start to regrow almost immediately after the old antlers are shed.