Dama dama Deer Trophy Antlers Horns Skull Mammalia Artiodactyla Cervidae

Description

Origin : Germany

Deer Trophy Dama dama Antlers on Skullcap Mammalia Arctiodactyla Cervidae, as in photos, without Shield.
Horns lenght 45, diagonal lenght 41 cm.
Family: Cervidae.
Common name: The European Fallow Deer, The Common Fallow Deer or simply Fallow Deer.
Syn. Cervus dama.

Antlers are the branched appendages found on the head of almost all species belonging to the Cervidae family.
The Antlers are improperly considered Horns and are of ectodermal derivation, formed completely from bone tissue. These are massive structures with mainly defensive purposes, but also suitable for attracting females.
Cervidal antlers have the following characteristics:
- they are branched
- are made up only of a particular bone tissue, without a horny covering.
- they are renewed periodically (usually every year).
The horns of the so-called cavicorns have a different nature: members of the Bovidae family, which includes cattle, goats and other subfamilies. The horns are without ramifications, made up of a bony base which does not regenerate once damaged or broken, externally covered by a horny layer.
The growth and subsequent fall of the antlers are regulated by two hormones: the somatotropic hormone and testosterone, which is a male hormone, in fact the antlers are carried almost exclusively by adult males. The only exception, among the deer, is the reindeer and the caribou in which the females also have antlers, however smaller than the male ones.
The somatotropic hormone is what determines the growth of the antlers. When the tissue is growing it is richly vascularized and externally covered by soft hair: velvet.
Testosterone, on the other hand, determines the progressive ossification of the antlers and, therefore, the closure of the vessels that nourish them. This causes firstly the arrest of growth, the death and detachment of the velvet, and finally the fall of the antlers.
Three species of deer live in Italy: red deer (Cervus elaphus), fallow deer (Dama dama) and roe deer (Capreolus capreolus).
From year to year the antler of deer and fallow deer becomes increasingly larger and more complex, so much so that it can be used as an index of the animal's age.
The fallow deer, in particular, have two daggers until the second year of life, after which the antler begins to branch and widen in the terminal blade, gradually becoming wider and more extended. After reaching the thirteenth year of age, the trophy begins to regress.