With the rifled antlered and antlerless deer seasons coming to close today, I thought I’d do a little refresher on antlers and animal horns.

My Dad (Arland) and his hunting pal Wayne Rehrig would discuss in the months preceding “rifle season,” where they saw or knew of bucks with the nicest horns. I know they knew the differences but it was so commonly stated as horns, it just made the conversations easier.

Dad kept about a dozen of his “horns” in our attic, and if an old hunting pal visited, he’d often send me to get the nicest set.

There is a huge difference. Antlers, first of all, are shed each year and a complete new set of antlers begins growing the next spring. White-tailed deer, mule deer, moose and elk all grow antlers.

Bighorn sheep, Rocky Mountain goats, bison and pronghorn antelope sport horns on their heads. Horns are basically a male adaptation, usually to display dominance or for fighting up to and during breeding time. The mountain goats, bison, bighorns and pronghorn females also have horns, but a “smaller version.”

Antlers on a white-tailed deer, elk and moose grow from two stubby areas on their foreheads called pedicels. For our local deer, the antler growth begins around early April as the pedicels enlarge slowly to a bigger bump. Growth initially is slow, but in late May and through June and July the growth is rather amazing. A mature whitetail can see ¼ inch of growth a day. Elk antlers can grow 1 inch a day in that time frame. As the daylight decreases and we move into August, most of the die is cast and only a small growth occurs after that.

The velvet that covers the growing bone feeds a generous amount of blood, oxygen and nutrients to the antlers. The velvet is rather delicate. Sometimes it gets damaged, and unusual antler growth will result.

To give you an idea on how much growth occurs, a mature moose can grow a set of antlers spanning 6 feet across and weighing about 70 pounds. The antlers on a mature elk can weigh 40 pounds. These massive antlers grow in a span of about four months. Nature is amazing. Generally, whitetails that live in more agricultural counties in Pennsylvania often get better food (alfalfa/clover/soybean fields) and if they live to and age 4 or 5, their antlers most likely would be larger than a whitetail living in the deep forests of the state, where less nutrients are available.

Horns are different. A male bighorn sheep as he matures keeps his horns all year. The outside of the horn is covered in keratin (similar to our fingernails) which from spring through summer nourishes the bone in the horns and they grow larger. The horns will increase in size as the male grows older.

If you’ve ever seen the heavy, curved horns of a mature ram, you may also have seen what appears to be annual rings of growth. Rocky Mountain bighorn rams do have some bone-jarring bouts during breeding time, where they crash headfirst into a rival ram. The female bighorns, bison and pronghorn antelope do have smaller, less distinctive horns compared to the males.

Domesticated cows and goats also have horns. They never shed them, and as they age, the horns get larger and larger.

Test Your Outdoor Knowledge: True/False — Female white-tailed deer never grow antlers.

Last Week’s Trivia Answer: American beech trees hold dead brown leaves until about April.

Email Barry Reed at breed71@gmail.com