antler

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  Antlers and Skull of Irish Elk
• WordNet 3.6
  • n antler deciduous horn of a member of the deer family
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• Interesting fact: The difference between horns and antlers is that horns never stop growing and antlers shed and grow every year
• • n Antler (Zoöl) The entire horn, or any branch of the horn, of a cervine animal, as of a stag.☞ The branch next to the head is called the brow antler, and the branch next above, the bez antler, or bay antler. The main stem is the beam, and the branches are often called tynes. Antlers are deciduous bony (not horny) growths, and are covered with a periosteum while growing. See Velvet. "Huge stags with sixteen antlers ."
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• Interesting fact: The cells which make up the antlers of a moose are the fastest growing animal cells in nature.
• • n antler Originally, the first tine or branch of the horns of a deer.
  • n antler Any of the principal tines or branches of a deer's horns: with a descriptive prefix or epithet. (See below.)
  • n antler Now, when used absolutely, one of the solid deciduous horns of the Cervidœ, or deer family, which are periodically shed and renewed, as distinguished from the permanent hollow horns of other ruminants. Antlers are of all shapes and sizes, from the short simple spikes of some species to the enormous branched or palmate antlers of the stag, elk, or moose. They are secondary sexual organs, developed in connection with the rut, and generally only in the male sex; in some Cervidœ, as reindeer, in both sexes. They consist of a modification of true bone, and are therefore radically different from the cuticular or epidermal structures (horns) of other ruminants. During growth they are covered with a modified periosteal and epidermal tissue, abounding in blood-vessels, and furry outside; this is the velvet, affording a copious supply of blood to the rapidly enlarging osseous tissue. When the antlers are full-grown the vascular activity of the velvet ceases, a result mechanically facilitated by the development of the boss or bur at the root of the beam, which to some extent strangulates the blood-vessels. The velvet then withers and shrivels, and peels off in shreds, or is rubbed off by the animal. The horns of the American prongbuck are antlers, inasmuch as they are deciduous and grow in the manner just described; but they are cuticular structures, and otherwise like the horns of cattle. In forestry, the tines of much-branched antlers, as those of the stag, have special names. In the first year the stag has only frontal protuberances, called bossets; in the second, a simple stem or snag, called spike in the case of American deer; in the third, a longer stem with one branch, the brow-antler; in the fourth, the bez-, bes-, or bay-antler; in the fifth, the antler royal is acquired; after which the ends of the stag's horns become more or less palmate, developing the crown or sur-royal, whence more or fewer points, diverge in subsequent years. The total number of ‘points,’ counting all the tines, may be ten. The main stem of a branched antler is the beam; the branches, exclusive of the mere points of the palmated part, are the tines. The order of branching is different in different species; in some the division is dichotomous throughout, as in the mule-deer of America. In general, the tines are offsets of a main beam. The reindeer is remarkable for the great size of the browantler, which is also usually much larger on one side than on the other. The most palmate antlers are those of the European elk and of the American moose.
  • n antler Same as antler-moth.
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• • n Antler ant′lėr a bony outgrowth from the frontal bones of deer—restricted to males, except in the reindeer: branch of a stag's horn
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