INDEX: Animal Horn Merchandising Displays

INDEX:
Animal Horn Merchandising Displays

Animal Horn Merchandising Displays

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This Animal Horn Merchandising Displays index page aggregates links
to all posts and photos of retail merchandising, display, and outfitting
as well as deep Background courtesy of Wikipedia.

BACKSTORY: A horn is a permanent pointed projection on the head of various animals that consists of a covering of keratinand other proteins surrounding a core of live bone. Horns are distinct from antlers, which are not permanent. In mammals, true horns are found mainly among the ruminant artiodactyls,^{[not verified in body]} in the families Antilocapridae (pronghorn) and Bovidae (cattle, goats, antelope etc.). Cattle horns arise from subcutaneous connective tissue (under the scalp) and later fuse to the underlying frontal bone.^[1]

One pair of horns is usual; however, two or more pairs occur in a few wild species and in some domesticated breeds of sheep. Polycerate (multi-horned) sheep breeds include the Hebridean, Icelandic, Jacob, Manx Loaghtan, and the Navajo-Churro.

Horns usually have a curved or spiral shape, often with ridges or fluting. In many species, only males have horns. Horns start to grow soon after birth and continue to grow throughout the life of the animal (except in pronghorns, which shed the outer layer annually, but retain the bony core). Partial or deformed horns in livestock are called scurs. Similar growths on other parts of the body are not usually called horns, but spurs, claws, or hooves, depending on the part of the body on which they occur. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

BACKSTORY: Antlers are extensions of an animal’s skull found in members of the Cervidae (deer) family. Antlers are a single structure composed of bone, cartilage, fibrous tissue, skin, nerves, and blood vessels. They are generally found only on males, with the exception of reindeer/caribou.^[1] Antlers are shed and regrown each year and function primarily as objects of sexual attraction and as weapons.^[2]

Antler comes from the Old French antoillier (see present French : “Andouiller”, from ant-, meaning before, oeil, meaning eye and -ier, a suffix indicating an action or state of being)^[3]^[4] possibly from some form of an unattested Latin word *anteocularis, “before the eye”^[5](and applied to the word for “branch”^[6] or “horn“^[4]).

Bones typically serve a structural purpose, with load bearing abilities that are greater than any other part of an animals body. Bones typically differ in shape and properties to better fit their overall function. ^[18] Antlers are not structural and typically have different properties when compared to structural bones like femurs.

While antlers are classified as bone, they differ in some ways from human bones and bovinebones. Bone is characterized as being made up of primarily collagen and a mineral phase.^[19] In antlers, the mineral content is considerably lower than other examples of bone tissue, while having a high volume of collagen.^[20] This leads antlers to having lower yield strength and stiffness, but higher fracture toughness when compared to human cortical bone. Mineral content differs among species and also depends on the food availability. ^[18] In recent studies, increase in mineral content has been linked to the increase in stiffness with a decrease in fracture toughness. ^[21]

Further, bones are highly anisotropic due to their hierarchical structure. Thus, mechanical properties are highly dependent on testing conditions and directions. ^[21] Due to their cylindrical shape, antlers can be tested using bending along three different orientations. Bend testing in these orientations have resulted in different mechanical properties. In samples from antler bone taken in the transverse direction, an elastic modulus of 8.92-10.02 GPa was reported. For the longitudinal and radial orientations, the elastic modulus was 7.19-8.23 and 4.01-4.27 GPa respectively. ^[21] The transverse direction was overall found to be the stronger orientation with higher mechanical properties. The ultimate tensile strength of 262.96-274.38 MPa in the transverse direction was statistically significant when compared to the longitudinal and radial directions’ values of 46.91-48.55 and 41.75-43.67 MPa. ^[21]

Tensile testing of antler bones has also been conducted to compare to bovine femur results. The antler samples were tested in dry and wet conditions as done in other studies. The wetness of a sample resulted in a difference in mean maximum strain: 1.46% and 2.2%, dry and wet respectively. Further, the ultimate tensile strength of wet, dry and bovine difference showed differences as well: 188 MPa, 108 MPa, and 99.2 MPa for dry, wet and bovine samples respectively. Similarly, the elastic modulus for dry samples was 17.1 GPa, 7.5 GPa for wet samples, and 17.7 GPa for bovine femur. ^[22] This difference in elastic modulus is due to the difference in function of a bovine femur versus an antler. Bovine femurs must withstand greater stresses, holding up the body of the animal, whereas an antler is used for sexual selection and competition.

(SOURCE: Wikipedia)

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