Freethought & Rationalism Archive

kingzfan2000 · 10-03-2005, 06:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by premjan

probably deer with more protection would suffer less damage when they banged heads. From there to antlers is more of a smooth succession.

But I dont think they would be banging heads if they didnt have protection in the first place. It doesnt make sense to bang heads for mating rivalry if your heads arent conditioned to deal with it, so I dont think its very likely that the antlers were a product of male deer banging their fragile skulls as that would likely lead to severe head trauma and possibly death for both dear involved. You dont usually see animals that arent built for head banging doing it. Rams do it because they are built for doing it, but I dont think its likely that rams horns are a product of rams banging heads before they had horns.

kingzfan2000 · 10-03-2005, 06:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Berthold

What if the males originally just shoved with their heads, and the antlers started as bumps? In the middle of the skull there is a suture, and structures tend to come in pairs anyway. The unicorn is as rare as the one-eyed, one- horned, flying purple people eater (by the way, is he purple, or does he eat purple people?).

Why would they shove with their heads if they didnt have antlers? It would be very laborious and probably ineffectual method of mating rivalry. I think we should give animals more credit than that.

kingzfan2000 · 10-03-2005, 06:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flintknapper

The antler actually grows out of a thing called a pedicle. Call it the "root" of the antler. The antler falls off every year in late winter, but the pedicle remains in the skull. Perhaps the pedicle is a modified gland like a scent gland, where there were two to begin with and only males had them?

Perhaps deer first had horns like goats, which are made of modified hairs instead of bone, and whose origin went much farther back in the evolutionary tree? With the pedicles already in place, it might have been simply a switch from modified hair to bone.

One thing for sure, antler is the near perfect tool to flake flint into tools. Antler was prized by primitive cultures from earliest times in the US.

While we're speculating, perhaps deer have always had antlers and that is the way they were designed

Oolon Colluphid · 10-03-2005, 06:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kingzfan2000

Why would they shove with their heads if they didnt have antlers? It would be very laborious and probably ineffectual method of mating rivalry.

But once again it is a case of survival of the fitter-than-the-next-guy. Head-butting contests are just that: contests. The winner is the one that does not retreat first -- the one with the skull more able to withstand a blow. The blow does not have to be hard, just harder than the other animal wants to put up with. But once the competition starts, you've got an arms race where you've got to have a harder head than grandad, just to keep up with everyone else.

Suppose we both have sensitive ears. Suppose we challenge each other for mates by shouting. With our sensitive ears, I may not have to shout very loudly to dissuade you from continuing, just as long as I can put up with your shouts. And so I get to leave descendants, even though I may not have shouted very loudly to get their mother(s).

But suppose my descendants, able to shout as loudly (and cope with loud sounds) as me, come across a male who can shout that bit more loudly, whose ears are perhaps a bit less sensitive. Chances are, my descendants will lose out, and his genes will spread.

If we could pull one of these later members of the population back in time to ‘now’, when we are all shouting quite quietly, he’d walk all over us.

Can you not see how head-butting contests could develop, down the generations, from ‘a bit of a bump and back off’ to full-on head-smacking? Cannot skull thickness, for example, gradually develop alongside the behaviour?

Oolon Colluphid · 10-03-2005, 06:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kingzfan2000

You dont usually see animals that arent built for head banging doing it.

You've never heard of the 'Scouse Kiss' then. Nobody would claim that humans are built for head banging. But suppose it became a way of deciding who got to mate. Those who happen to have thicker skulls will get to mate. And if they pass on that feature to their offspring, it will spread through the population... till someone with an even thicker skull turns up.

And actually, animals not built for it could easily start doing it nevertheless. I’ve watched two male giraffes at my local zoo engage in their usual tussles. This usually involves neck-to-neck shoving, and more often, swinging their heads so as to smack one neck against the other. But I saw them get it wrong once, and heads collided. The smaller male, who had been holding his own till then, backed off in a hurry.

Oolon Colluphid · 10-03-2005, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kingzfan2000

While we're speculating, perhaps deer have always had antlers and that is the way they were designed

And Irish elk had such vast antlers by design too, yeah? Antlers so huge that to grow them, calcium and phosphate were depleted from their bones, so that during their growth phase the beasties suffered a form of osteoporosis. Then the antlers were shed, only to be regrown.

Yeah, designed. Designed by the usual idiot designer of organisms.

Berthold · 10-03-2005, 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oolon Colluphid

I’ve watched two male giraffes at my local zoo engage in their usual tussles.

Giraffes do have something like pedicles.

Oolon Colluphid · 10-03-2005, 08:43 AM

True, but their usual mode of fighting is (pretty drastic-looking) neck-thumping. Anyone know what their knobbly horn things are for (if anything)?

premjan · 10-04-2005, 12:16 AM

reproduction is a prime imperative, so if head banging (or any other form of aggression) will get you more mates then you will probably do it. animals that don't do it much, probably have more plentiful mating opportunities.

Agemegos · 10-04-2005, 01:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mageth

The male of the lethal deer would tend to kill each other off at a higher rate, no? And thus, probably, have fewer offspring.

Unlikely. The number of offspring would be limited by the fertility of the females until the male numbers were reduced by a factor of a hundred or so.

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10-03-2005, 08:43 AM	#38
Oolon Colluphid Contributor Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: Alibi: ego ipse hinc extermino Posts: 12,591	True, but their usual mode of fighting is (pretty drastic-looking) neck-thumping. Anyone know what their knobbly horn things are for (if anything)?

10-04-2005, 12:16 AM	#39
premjan Obsessed Contributor Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: NJ Posts: 61,538	reproduction is a prime imperative, so if head banging (or any other form of aggression) will get you more mates then you will probably do it. animals that don't do it much, probably have more plentiful mating opportunities.

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