Female Animals With Horns Or Antlers

Do female animals have horns.

Female animals with horns or antlers. In some circles there appears to be a debate that only male hoofed animals have horns. The only exception is the reindeer as both males and females grow antlers annually. In reality some female animals have horns for similar reasons to their male counterparts.

Antlers are shed and regrown yearly while horns are never shed and continue to grow throughout an animal s life. For example male and female cattle including the many wild versions such as the african cape buffalo and wildebeest a kind of antelope have horns while in most other bovids only the males. But reindeer are the only species in which the females also grow antlers and an explanation can be found by looking at bovids a closely related family including antelopes goats and sheep.

Adult female reindeer with antlers in velvet rangifer tarandus walking across upland moor in the cairngorms scotland. Among all cervid species it is the only one where both male and female sexes can grow antlers. Antlers belong to elk deer moose and caribou while horns are for cows buffalo goats and rhinoceros among others.

One exception is the pronghorn which sheds and regrows its horn sheath each year. This antler has two individual groups of a point such as upper and lower. Cow horns are bones.

While there are many famous horned animals like rudolph from rudolph the red nosed reindeer morty from northern exposure and bullwinkle from the adventures of rocky and bullwinkle and friends many more of these majestic animals have been gathered to test your knowledge of. Do you know what a reindeer rhinoceros deer and a mountain goat have in common. Antlers are shed annually and they are usually present only in the males.

Horns are usually found on both males and in a diminutive form females. A functionally extant animal reindeer or caribou is another animal with antlers. Thus antler size is an indicator to females of a male s strength and health.