North American Deer: Mule, Whitetail and Coastal Blacktail Deer

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All About Deer Antlers

Although the terms are often used interchangeably, there are several significant differences between antler and horn. The most apparent, of course, is inform: Horns are composed of single beams (though they often curl and twist into odd shapes), whereas antlers are branched and multitined, often taking on bizarre and complex patterns. Some species (such as moose and caribou) have antlers that are palmate: broad and flat, resembling massive hands with the fingers spread.

Another significant difference in these two types of mammalian headgear is that antlers are deciduous—that is, they're shed and replaced annually—while horns are permanent. (The single, striking exception to this rule is the pronghorn antelope—Antilocapra americana—which sheds the outer sheath of its horns annually, but retains a living, bony matrix around which a new sheath forms.)

And, finally, antlers grow from their tips and are composed of solid bone . . . while horn is a mass of hardened epidermal tissue (keratin) that grows from its base in concentric cones that push up and out, one beneath the other.

Antler growth is timed to coincide with the annual mating season. The cycle begins in midwinter, when last season's antlers-now useless—are shed leaving the buck to go bareheaded for a couple of months before the new season's growth begins. Starting in early spring and continuing through midsummer, the new antlers develop. At this point they're composed of living cells nourished and protected—-by a venous, skinlike covering called velvet. By late summer, with mating season just around the corner, the velvet begins to die, dry, and peel away from the hardening antlers—a process the buck speeds along by rubbing his rack against flexible saplings, then honing the tips to rapierlike sharpness on soft-barked trees.

This scrubbing and honing behavior also enables the buck to "learn" his antlers-that is, to get a sense of how large they are and their exact shape—so that he'll be better prepared to maneuver them through the woods at a dead run, show them off to the ladies and rival suitors, and—if necessary—employ them effectively in combat. By the arrival of mating season—roughly. mid-September through November—the antlers are hard, resilient, stone-dead bone. . . peeled, polished, and ready for action.

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