Why do elk have antlers

He took a course in Volcanology with Dr. Van der Laat from the UCR. He is a great fan of volcanism! He is an avid mountain hiker and MTBiker. Finally, he took a naturalist guide certification course through the University of Wyoming to enable him to better understand the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. His strong points are his passion and enthusiasm for sharing his knowledge and love of nature, wherever that may be. Throughout her time in school and after graduating, Helen led 9 to day canoeing, sea kayaking, and backpacking expeditions focused on leadership development amongst groups of young women.

These trips led her from the Great Lakes Region to the tundras of the Canadian subarctic in Nunavut and Northwest Territories, where she developed a love of hardy plants and animals thriving in cold, dry places. In , Helen moved to Jackson and began working for Teton Science Schools as a Field Instructor, marrying her passions for science and the natural world with her experiences leading in outdoor education.

With this unique landscape and its wild inhabitants in the foreground, she has since had the opportunity to connect with hundreds of visitors in this spectacular ecosystem. When not out inspecting nooks and crannies of high alpine environments for hidden wildflowers, Helen enjoys trail running, cooking colorful meals, backcountry skiing, and learning about the ever-evolving intersections between people and the environment in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

After working many seasons as a guide and field instructor, Logan began working with private and public colleges in the State of Georgia coordinating outdoor programming with an emphasis on introducing inner-city and underprivileged students to outdoor initiatives and sustainable practices while recreating outdoors.

Samantha Fogel. Callie Lajza. Currently, Callie spends a lot of time on the water as well as pursuing hiking and climbing in the Tetons! Horns are permanent, they grow from their base up, and both males and females may have them. Many domestic animals like goats, sheep, and cattle have horns. Antlers, on the other hand, are borne only by the male members of the Cervidae deer family, including moose, elk, deer, and caribou with female caribou being an exception to this male-only rule.

Antlers grow from their tips, and they fall off and regrow every year. They are made totally of bone, whereas horns are a core of bone surrounded by a sheath of keratin, the same material as fingernails. Antler growth and shedding are closely associated with changes in day length. Changing day length stimulates the pineal gland, starting a cascade of events that increases or decreases blood levels of the male hormone testosterone.

In early spring, as the days start to get longer and male elk have low levels of testosterone, they drop their antlers and almost immediately begin to grow a new set.

Over the next few months, increasing day length and testosterone levels cause many changes in male elk—thickening of the neck, aggressive tendencies, an increase in sperm production, and the hardening of the new antlers.

As they are developing, antlers are somewhat spongy and covered by a soft, moss-like skin, called velvet, that provides nutrients and oxygen to the growing bone. By late summer the antlers are fully developed and the elk rubs the velvet off on small branches, often stabbing at bushes and occasionally digging them up and then prancing around wearing bushes like gigantic hats on their antlers.

Antlers are secondary sexual characteristics. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

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Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives. Join our community of educators and receive the latest information on National Geographic's resources for you and your students. Skip to content. Twitter Facebook Pinterest Google Classroom. Select Text Level: Educator. This Roosevelt elk carries a beautiful set of heavy antler s.

Antlers—including the ones on this elk—are grown and lost by most species of male deer every year. An adult male elk, or bull, begins to grow antlers in spring. Antlers are a part of a bull's skull. Each antler grows from a point in the skull called a pedicle. Antlers emerge as cartilage , with bone replacing the cartilage from the pedicle up as the antler grows.

As antlers grow, they are covered with a layer of furry skin called velvet. Velvet is vascularize d, meaning it is full of tiny blood vessel s carrying oxygen and other nutrient s to antler tips, allowing them to grow about 2.

By late summer or early autumn, the velvet falls off, leaving the elk with a kilogram pound pair of solid-bone antlers.