Extreme antler growth in extinct giant deer carried severe metabolic and mineral costs
Evidence
Elk pay a steep price for their weapons. Bulls double their daily energetic needs and leach essential minerals away from other bones in order to grow antlers. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 951 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Unlike the rest of the body, which takes years to grow to adult size, antlers in even the largest bulls go from nothing to full size in just a few months. Antlers grow faster than any other bone in any animal, and this record speed racks up record energetic costs. Estimates from antlers of a related species, fallow deer, show that while males are growing antlers they more than double their daily energetic needs. In addition, growing antlers suck up so much calcium and phosphorus—minerals that make up the bone—that the males cannot possibly get enough from their food. Instead, they leach these vital minerals out of other bones and shunt them to the antlers, depleting the rest of their skeleton so severely that they experience a seasonal form of osteoporosis. Their bones get weak and brittle at precisely the time of the year—the rut—when they must hurl themselves against eight-hundred-pound rivals in incessant battles for access to females. By the end of the rut, the males will have fought so often and so hard that they’ve lost a quarter of their body weight, and they emerge from this season battered, starved, and brittle boned. If they cannot replenish their reserves in the few short weeks before winter, they’ll starve. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 14 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Moose and caribou strip minerals from their own bones to grow antlers; Growing antlers doubles elk bulls’ daily energetic needs and depletes bone minerals — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 951; Climate-driven food decline may have tipped costly antler growth toward extinction (+5 more)
Related
- Moose and caribou strip minerals from their own bones to grow antlers (similarity 0.94)
- Climate-driven food decline may have tipped costly antler growth toward extinction (similarity 0.94)
- Growing antlers doubles elk bulls’ daily energetic needs and depletes bone minerals (similarity 0.93)
- Growing antlers depletes males’ skeletons so severely that bones weaken during the rut (similarity 0.92)
- Growing antlers so deplete male skeletons that they risk starvation after the rut. (similarity 0.91)
- Growing antlers can double a moose’s daily basal metabolic rate. (similarity 0.89)
- Irish elk, extinct 11,000 years ago, grew the largest antlers known, spanning twelve feet. (similarity 0.84)
- Costly weaponry can drive a species extinct when resources degrade. (similarity 0.84)
Broader Connections
- Growing antlers doubles elk bulls’ daily energetic needs and depletes bone minerals
#corroborates(0.75) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 951 - Growing antlers depletes males’ skeletons so severely that bones weaken during the rut
#corroborates(0.65) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 14 - Climate-driven food decline may have tipped costly antler growth toward extinction
#corroborates(0.60) - Growing antlers can double a moose’s daily basal metabolic rate.
#corroborates(0.60) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 316 - Irish elk, extinct 11,000 years ago, grew the largest antlers known, spanning twelve feet.
#corroborates(0.55) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 319 - Growing antlers so deplete male skeletons that they risk starvation after the rut.
#corroborates(0.55) - Costly weaponry can drive a species extinct when resources degrade.
#expands(0.50) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 437