This is the time of year when the new antlers of white-tailed bucks are said to be “in velvet,” a crucial time for the animals. While in velvet, their antlers are particularly prone to injury; even small cuts or bruises in the velvet can result in deformed antlers.
A deformed “rack” could put a male deer at a severe disadvantage for reproduction or even survival. During mating season, for instance, bucks often use their antlers in fights with other males to defend territory or win the right to mate with a female.
To me, though, the annual shedding and regrowth of deer antlers is one of nature’s most fascinating processes. After breeding season in the fall, all male deer shed their antlers, usually beginning around January, when their levels of testosterone (male sex hormone) plummet.
At that time, special cells “demineralize” the bony connection between the skull and the antlers, which then weaken and fall off.
Almost immediately, the deer starts growing a new rack, a process that requires large amounts of nutrients and energy. Deer antlers are some of the fastest growing tissues in nature — as fast as a half inch per day.
The antlers, which are true bone formations, develop from pedicles, or the antler-growing bases attached to the skull. Through late spring and summer, the developing antlers are covered with velvet, a hair-like membrane of living tissue that supplies blood and nutrients to the structures.
By August, growth slows and the antlers begin to harden. In late August or early September, growth is completed; blood stops flowing to the antlers. The velvet quickly dries and the buck sloughs or rubs it off, resulting in a new set of polished, hard antlers for the breeding season that begins in October.
Testosterone levels also increase. Once again the bucks are primed for battle to defend territories and win mating rights with females.
In the sky: The South Delta Aquarid meteor shower, visible Saturday night through Wednesday night, reaches a peak of 15 meteors per hour Monday night, said David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer. Look to the southeast from midnight until dawn. The moon, which is new Saturday night, will be a thin crescent low in the west at dusk Monday. Mercury is low in the east just before dawn. Venus rises out of the east about an hour before dawn. Mars is in the west at sunset. Saturn is in the west at dusk and sets in the west around midnight.
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