Re: Do deer antlers stay attached after death?

Yes, Adrian, antlers are firmly fixed to a deer's head, and will not drop 
off when the animal dies.  If you were an alien zoologist, and you 
examined a deer with antlers, you would probably conclude that they were 
permanent fixtures, but you would be puzzled by the fact that they are 
made of dry, dead bone, and you would wonder how they grew without a 
blood supply.

As we know, male deer (and some females - for instance reindeer) grow a 
fresh set of antlers each year during the summer, and shed them several 
months later.  While they are growing they are filled with a network of 
blood vessels, like living bone inside the body, and are covered with 
skin, known as 'velvet'.  When they reach full size, the blood supply is 
cut off, and the blood vessels are reabsorbed.  The velvet dries out and 
begins to fall off - it must be itchy, as stags often 'thrash' vegetation 
to removed the tatters of skin at this stage.  When the time comes for 
them to be shed, changes take place in the bone at the base, weakening the 
joint until the antlers fall.  This leaves a neat scar, similar to the 
scar left by a leaf when it falls in autumn, easily distinguishable from a 
broken or sawn off antler.

Why should deer expend so much effort in growing a large quantity of new 
bone each year ?  Antlers appear to be useful only for fighting with other 
similarly armed male deer, but not for more useful things like driving off 
predators.  The fact that the antlers are shed after the breeding season 
suggests that they must be costly (in energy terms) and inconvenient to 
carry around, so why bother ?  Antlers are 'secondary sexual 
characteristics' meaning that they are features which indicate the sex of 
the animal without playing a direct part in reproduction, like a human 
beard or a male peacock's tail.  You could describe them as decorative, 
and Darwin suggested that such features play an important part in 
influencing the female's choice of male.  It still seems strange to go to 
the lengths of producing such big, useless and expensive appendages just 
to impress the opposite sex - why not just a pretty coloured coat, or an 
appealing call ?   Maybe the females aren't that easily impressed.   Maybe 
they are looking for a male who is strong enough (in other words, has 
secured enough resources) to be able to grow and carry big antlers, and 
still keep fighting ?  Who gets the most girls in your street - maybe the 
guy with the big, useless, expensive car . . . ?  (and to avoid being 
labelled sexist - who gets the most guys ?)

Regarding your question about the probability of finding skulls with 
antlers attached, that depends on what happens to dead bodies in your 
area.  If all the male deer with big antlers are shot by hunters, they 
will probably take the heads away as trophies.  If deer are more often 
killed on the road, then you should find a lot more skulls with antlers.

For more information about the antler cycle, try Lincoln, G.A. 
1984. 'Antlers and their regeneration - a study using hummels, hinds and 
haviers.' Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 82B: 243-59