Antlers

I found a podcast from the Royal Veterinary College in London from Professor Jo Price. It looks at Antler shedding and regeneration .

These are some of the main points from the interview.

Antlers are not like horns which are pointed projections of skin.

Antlers are made up of bone, same bone thats in my leg and is also grown in a similar process. In the autumn/ winter when the stags fight with the antlers they are solid dead bone attached to a permanent extension on the deers skull called a pedicle. The Antler bone is slightly bendier bone than normal. This is because when they are fighting they don't want there antlers to be a little less stiff other wise they would be to brittle and they would brake.

The main evolutionary use of antlers is for display and fighting for getting the female. The reason why they are shed each year is because they get bigger and thicker each year so this increases the 'pulling power' of the individual stag if he has bigger and more impressive antlers each year. As the stag becomes more sexually successful the bigger the Antlers get.

Antlers are more often used as a grand display to warn other stags of rather than to fight. But when they do fight they are not used to hurt each other but to push each other about.

There is evidence from scientists that Antler size is related to sexual success.

The main mystery of antlers is why they grow so fast. This phenomenal rate of growth is the fastest in the animal kingdom. Some of the largest antlered animal such as moose and elk can grow up to 2cm a day. Many antler are racing to find the reason the rate of growth at a molecular level. Many scientists have been looking for this, it seems that they grow in a very similar way to all bones but just sped up, but some scientists have been looking for this 'magic' part of the growth to explain why they grow so fast.

Antler growth is linked with sexual hormone levels, just the same as in humans. We have a spurt of growth during puberty when there are ups and downs in our hormone levels.

The shape of antlers are not dissimilar each year even thought they get bigger each year. In the natural history museum there is a set of Antlers from one stag showing the rate in growth each year and they are recognisable to each other.

Once scientists can fully understand what the triggers are for antler stem cell regeneration it can give us clues into regeneration for organs and bones for humans and animals.

The velvet skin that is grown over the antlers when they are growing is scarless, so if injured no scar will appear after it has healed. Nerves in antlers grow faster than in any other mammilion structure. Which is a another good place to research into nerve regeneration.