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Velvet covers a growing antler and provides it with blood, supplying oxygen and nutrients.

Antlers are the usually large and complex bony appendages on the heads of most deer species, mostly on males; only caribou and reindeer have antlers on the females, and these are normally smaller than those of the males. Nevertheless, fertile does from other species of deer have the capacity to produce antlers on occasion, usually due to increased testosterone levels.^[1] Each antler grows from an attachment point on the skull called a pedicle. While an antler is growing, it is covered with highly vascular skin called velvet, which supplies oxygen and nutrients to the growing bone; once the antler has achieved its full size, the velvet is lost and the antler's bone dies. This dead bone structure is the mature antler, which is itself shed after each mating season.

An advancer is a term used by hunters for one of the starts or branches of a buck's attire between the back antler and the "palm" (the flattened part of the antlers). In other words, the advancer is the second branch of a buck's horn.

Antlers appear to act as large hearing aids. This effect was discovered by researchers George and Peter Bubenik and published the findings in the European Journal of Wildlife in March 2008. Moose with antlers have far more sensitive hearing than moose without. The Bubeniks then studied trophy antlers with an artificial ear, confirming that the antler behaves like a parabolic reflector.^[2]

[edit] Uses

Fallen antlers used to make a chandelier, Wainwright, Alberta.

Antlers that are shed each year fall to the ground and are often collected by craftsmen. Called "fallen", they have been used for centuries by mankind to make tools, toys and games. Collected while in the velvet stage, antlers of elk and deer are commonly used as a dietary supplement or alternative medicinal substance in Asia; the practice dates to more than 2,000 years ago.^[3]

[edit] Examples of various types of antlers

Irish Elk	Moose	Reindeer/Caribou	Red Deer
White-tailed deer	Fallow deer	Elk/Wapiti	Pudú
Antlers at the start of the season	Mule deer missing an antler	Sambar Deer with thick, forked beams for antlers.

[edit] See also

• Abbots Bromley Horn Dance
• Shed hunting

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• - Great Article on Antlers; Facts and Information
• - Antler Growth Study

This article incorporates content from the 1728 Cyclopaedia, a publication in the public domain.