Hi, my name is Elizabeth and I work with Colorado Parks and Wildlife in the
Schools and Outdoor learning Environments program. And, I'd like to ask you a question today.
Do you know the difference between an antler and a horn?
Let's talk about it.
Horns, like this pronghorn you see here, are made up of something called
keratin. That's a protein that makes up your fingernails, your hair and if you
remember from our snake sheds video, snake skins. Now, the big difference
between a horn and an antler is that protein is on the outside of the horn
and on the inside, you'll see a bone. So, the sheath of the pronghorn goes on the
outside. Antlers, not to be confused with horns,
are a little bit different. Let's take a look at an elk shed for a second. So, when
you look at this, this antler is made entirely of bone. In fact, there's no
hollow inside here. You can see that this is all one piece. This is actually one of
the fastest growing tissues of all mammals. And, these sheds will actually
come off the animal during the winter to spring time, so they can be found all
around Colorado. And, other animals in the deer family also shed, including mule
deer. So, you can see sheds like this showing up around Colorado during the
winter and springtime.
Antlers grew from something called a pedicle, a tiny bone on the skull. Antlers
are only seen in males of the deer species, like that of moose, elk, mule deer
and white-tailed deer. The only exception being the caribou, where you can actually
see antlers on both males and females, but you won't be finding caribou around
Colorado any time soon. As antlers grow each year, they are covered in a membrane
called velvet. This provides nourishment to the growing bones and has hairs that
helps the deer to feel around if it's too close to something that could cause
damage to its head or the growing antlers. So, many people when they look at
an antler think that they are able to age the animal, but that's not
necessarily the case. In fact, you're probably more likely to be able to tell
the health of the animal when you look at the antler, be able to tell the amount
of nutrients they're able to get ahold of. Maybe their environment has a little
bit more nutrition and they're able to get a little bit more of it than others?
So, which one do you think got a little bit more nutrition, this one or this one?
The bigger the rack the more healthy a deer is. Although, size can give you an
estimate of the age range of a deer's life.
Let's take a bull elk for example. A typical 6x6 bull, that's a bull with six
points on his antlers on each side, is most likely around four and a half years
old. Some of these elk can actually be carrying around 40 pounds on their heads.
Some moose it's even 80 pounds, but why waste all that energy growing such large
antlers that will just fall off on the spring? Well, it all has to do with
winning the right to mate.
Rutting season, or mating season, occurs during different times in the fall for
each of these deer species, and it puts a lot of stress on the males. Here they
battle for dominance and the right to mate with the females of their species.
With the elk for instance, it's all about gathering a group of cow elk called a
harem. A dominant bull can maybe have even 50 to 100 cows in a harem,
and it may come down just to a handful of winners.
And, a lot is riding on their abilities since it's all about passing
on their genes to the next generation.
You may be wondering to yourself after looking all these different, really cool,
sheds, "Man how do I get my hands on one of these?" Well, slow down there. There's a
couple things you need to know before you go. There is a time of year closure for shed
collection. In Colorado, on all public lands west of I-25, it is prohibited to collect antlers
from January 1st through April 30th. In some areas, there is also a time of
day closure from sunset to 10:00 a.m. You may be wondering, "Well, why is there
a prohibition to begin with? The deer don't need their antlers by winter anymore anyways." Well,
winter can be a very difficult time of year. Those looking for sheds can cause
distress when venturing out to the deers' habitat. So, to help them better survive, we
can give them more space during this time. And, leaving behind those sheds not
only helps the deer survive, but it also helps other wildlife as well. In fact,
many will actually go and seek out those sheds throughout the winter in order to
get extra calcium into their diet. Here's an example here. On this elk antler, it
looks like a squirrel chewed off a piece of it in order to get that calcium.
Sometimes it's the small things that we do that help wildlife the most.
Is there another topic that you'd like to see SOLE cover? Go ahead and share it
in the comments below.