Growing antlers can double a moose’s daily basal metabolic rate.

Evidence

Ron Moen and John Pastor used an entirely different approach to measure the price that male moose pay for weapons. By quantifying exactly how many milligrams of each mineral, carbohydrate, lipid, and protein an animal eats, and feeding this information into complex biochemical models of the physiology of vertebrate tissues, they were able to calculate precisely how much a male must shunt away from other body functions in order to sustain weapon growth. What they showed was that antler growth in moose demanded 50 percent more energy per day from a male across the growing season, with peak demands reaching 100 percent (literally doubling the basal metabolic rate of all of the rest of the tissues of the body). Summed across the period of antler growth, this resulted in energetic demands as high as five times the energetic requirements of simply maintaining their bodies. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 316

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Moose and caribou strip minerals from their own bones to grow antlers; Extreme antler growth in extinct giant deer carried severe metabolic and mineral costs; Growing antlers doubles elk bulls’ daily energetic needs and depletes bone minerals — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 951

Related

• Moose and caribou strip minerals from their own bones to grow antlers (similarity 0.93)
• Growing antlers doubles elk bulls’ daily energetic needs and depletes bone minerals (similarity 0.93)
• Extreme antler growth in extinct giant deer carried severe metabolic and mineral costs (similarity 0.89)
• Growing antlers depletes males’ skeletons so severely that bones weaken during the rut (similarity 0.89)
• Growing antlers so deplete male skeletons that they risk starvation after the rut. (similarity 0.87)
• Climate-driven food decline may have tipped costly antler growth toward extinction (similarity 0.85)