DECIDUOUS NATURE OF DEER ANTLERS 



343 



Fig. 10. Sagittal section showing concave base of antler caused, by castra- 

 tion, to be shed on October 25. Note the absence of compact bone at plane of 

 shedding. 



Fig. 11. Antler shed on April 2 by a castrated deer, showing convex base. 



Fig. 12. Tvpical convex base of an antler shed in the spring bv a normal 

 deer. 



the congested blood vessels of the region. Emphasizing the possible 

 importance of neurovascular influences in antler shedding, Gruber 

 ( op. cit. ) says that upon loss of the antler the vessels closest to the 

 shedding zone contract as soon as their contents have flowed out to 

 produce a scab. Beneath this scab, a vascularized syncytial mesen- 

 chymal tissue grows out of the marrow cavities of the pedicle. 

 Wound healing and antler regeneration take place subsequently. 



Confirming and extending many of the earlier observations, Wis- 

 locki ( 1942 ) mentioned the existence of a layer of fibrocellular 

 tissue on a Virginia deer pedicle from which the antler had recently 

 been shed. This tissue, probably equivalent to Gruber's syncytium, 

 is located immediately beneath the blood clot and above the can- 

 cellous trabeculae of the pedicle. In later studies, Waldo and Wis- 

 locki (1951) and Wislocki and Waldo (1953) claimed that this 



Figs. 1 to 7. Representative stages in the development of the antler of the 

 sika deer. Figure 1 shows animal's right pedicle shortly after antler was shed; 

 no scab has formed vet, in contrast to opposite pedicle, from which antler was 

 detached a day or two earlier. 



Fig. 8. Magnified view of base of shed antler illustrating (top to bottom) 

 the burr, a ring of adherent epidermis, a peripheral zone of relatively smooth 

 bone erosion, and an inner zone of delicate bony spicules. ( X 5.) 



Fig. 9. Longitudinal section through distal pedicle and part of antler, show- 

 ing abrupt termination of pedicle epidermis (arrow) against the antler-pedicle 

 bone (at left). (X 6.) 



