Ever wonder what the difference is between an antler and a horn?
People regularly refer to the headgear on male deer elk and moose as horns, according to Mark Zornes of the Wyoming Department of Game and Fish.
That’s wrong. They’re antlers.
Antlers on members of the deer family, according to the experts at Yellowstone National Park, are grown as an extension of the animal’s skull. They are true bone and are a single structure, generally found only on males.
Antlers are shed and regrown each year.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) A deer with velvet antlers in a Woodland Hills field, Thursday, June 9, 2016.
Horns, on the other hand, are found on pronghorn, bighorn sheep and other bovine family members. An interior bone, also the extension of the skull, horns are similar to human fingernails.
According to the National Park Service, an interior of bone (also an extension of the skull) is covered by an exterior sheath grown by specialized hair follicles, as are your fingernails.
Horns are never shed and grow throughout an animal’s life.
