Why moose lose their antlers

While humans will soon be spring cleaning, moose clean house in the winter by getting rid of their antlers. But members of the deer family—including its biggest member, the moose—annually shed their antlers, which are not fused to their skull. Only male moose have antlers, and their growth is regulated by testosterone, Kris Hundertmark , a wildlife ecologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, says via email. Read how moose get so big eating plants. Casting off these massive structures frees moose of up to 60 pounds of weight, allowing them to store more energy for the winter, says Lee Kantar , moose biologist with the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in Maine.

Moose are native to cold, northern climes of North America, Europe, and Asia. Each spring, usually in April, antler bone begins to grow inside a nourishing skin covering on the moose's head, called velvet due to its short, soft hairs.

Antlers are "one of the fastest-growing tissues of an animal," adds Kantar, and Crichton has seen up to eight inches of antler growth in a span of nine days. As testosterone surges in male moose, around September, the velvet will shed see video and the antler bone hardens. As males age, their antlers grow in bigger each year. Also read: " What's a Ghost Moose? Velvet stays on antlers for just over four months, when males will start rubbing up against trees and bushes to remove it—a behavior that turns their antlers brown.

Brenner is also a published sci-fi author. She graduated from San Diego's Coleman College in TL;DR Too Long; Didn't Read Moose and other animals belonging to the Cervidae family shed their antlers because of the levels of testosterone in their bloodstream at the end of breeding season.

How Do Elephants Sleep? How Do Elephants Mate? How Do Deer Antlers Grow? Life Cycle of a Manatee. Interesting Facts About Baby Wolves. Body Parts of a Deer. A large set of antlers signals to younger or weaker bulls that the moose wearing them is not to be messed with. Sometimes equally matched bulls will battle each other, but these infrequent fights are usually brief shoving matches rather than battles to the death.

After the rut is over, bulls typically shed their antlers between November and March. Mature bulls tend to drop theirs first. Carrying large antlers uses more energy, and mature bulls that were active during the rut have low energy reserves, so it makes sense from a survival perspective to lose their antlers before winter. Younger bulls tend to lose their antlers later. One April I saw a bull carrying one antler, and two weeks later I saw him again, still carrying it! He must have been getting tired of feeling lopsided.

Mice, squirrels, and porcupines chew on antlers for calcium and other minerals, and to keep their teeth filed down. All the more reason for shed hunters to get out in the woods as soon as the snow melts. As the season goes on, it becomes harder to find antlers — not only do the leaves make them harder to see, but the rodents make them disappear.

Another, more concerning, factor has made moose antlers difficult to find. When I worked in northern New Hampshire in the mids, it was typical to see several moose every week, and sometimes several per day.

A family in Wyoming recently recorded a rarely seen event: a bull moose literally dropping an antler. The family doesn't want to identify the specific location out of fears the animal might be targeted by hunters. Poor guy. But the moose more likely experienced a sense of relief, says moose biologist and author Bill Samuel of the University of Alberta.

Moose and other deer relatives shed their antlers every year, and the process is thought to be painless, says Samuel. Actually witnessing that brief event is quite rare, says Samuel.

Watch moose butting heads on a suburban street. Male, or bull, moose grow their antlers each year through the spring and summer. When they first form, antlers are covered with a layer of skin called velvet , which nourishes the bone as it grows. When finished, the velvet sheds off, a process that the moose often accelerate by rubbing on trees.

The antlers are fully formed by the early fall, when bull moose bellow to attract females and use their weaponry to battle rival males watch an epic moose fight.

After mating, the male and female go their separate ways. Weighting up to 1, pounds kilograms and standing more than six feet two meters tall, moose are the largest species of deer in the world. Their antlers can spread six feet from end to end and weigh 40 pounds 18 kilograms.