Why do deer shed their antlers? Could you just walk up to a deer and take their antler off without hurting them?
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They grow in the spring and are surrounded by velvet (vascular tissue) once the antlers are done growing the velvet dies and falls off this happens in later summer. Once the velvet is gone the antlers are “dead” they are just solid bone sticking out of their head you could saw them off and not inflict any pain. They are however solidly connected to their scull so you can’t just take them off, but in the early spring long after they are no longer useful for sparing for mates and what not the connection to their scull begins to weaken to the point eventually they just fall off. In most cases they fall off within a few minutes of each other. As to why they do this there are a few advantages, but conserving energy probably isn’t one of them like people have said because they keep them well through winter and don’t fall off until spring when the new antlers start to grow. With deer species their antlers get bigger each year which makes them better at fighting and winning more mates as they get older. Their antlers are also susceptible to breaking during sparing or tree marking so regrowing each year keeps that from being a life altering event and keeps it just a one year set back. Also for their antlers to grow their whole lives and never fall off they would need some way to have blood supply and bones just don’t work that way they. In order to grow they need to be surrounded by tissue with blood flow. Animals that have permanent horns are not bone they are actually more like fingernails or claws they made of keratin and grow from a follicle.
So bottom line, they are bone, they grow surrounded by tissue, that tissue needs to be gone for the antlers to be useful in the fall for fighting so it dies and falls off. They use the antlers fight for mates. The antlers then fall off to make way for a bigger pair of antlers the next year so they win more fights. If you were to find a deer right at the right time in the spring yes you could pull them off but any other time they are connected very solidly to the skull.
Evolutionarily speaking and old deer equals a fit smart deer who has done a great job finding food and avoiding predators. Old deer have the biggest antlers so they win the most fights and mate the most. Bata bing bata boom.
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