the.com/antlers
the only mammal organs that regrow yearly, like nature's disposable swords
means The branched bony growths sprouting from the heads of deer, moose, elk, and their relatives, shed and regrown each year.
from From Old French 'antoillier,' a word for the branches of a stag's headgear, which may trace back to a Latin phrase 'ante ocularem'—roughly 'the one before the eye'—describing the brow tine that juts forward over the animal's face. The deeper roots are murky, but the eye-front image has stuck for centuries.
- growth speed
- fastest growing tissue of any mammal
- bone, not horn
- true bone shed and regrown annually
- velvet skin
- living fuzz feeds them, then peels away
- testosterone clock
- falling hormones make them drop off
- size record
- extinct Irish elk spanned twelve feet wide
moose antlers — largest of any deer species, weighing up to 40 pounds and spanning 6 feet wide
irish elk antlers — extinct species with antlers spanning 12 feet, largest of any deer ever known
caribou antlers — only deer species where females grow antlers, found in arctic north america and siberia