Why do mooses have horns?

i always wondered why mooses have horns and i have been told that they use them for fighting but that cant be the only reason...

Why do mooses have horns?
To alert oncoming traffic.
Reply:Mooses have antlers(horns) not just to fight with but to also mark their territories in the forest so other moose can smell their scent and females to know where a male is
Reply:first of all no they dont have horns they have antlers.


And they're pretty mush like boobs...just for showing off.
Reply:Moose do not have horns, they have antlers. There is a difference. Antlers are for displaying to other moose how verile and strong the moose is. Generally any antlered animals will size each other up before fighting and antler rack size will have some effect on whether the animals end up fighting or one backs down. Generally equally sized males will fight, unequal moose will usually cause the smaller one to back down. Antler growth does vary but usually gets larger with age and with more food so more mature males who have fed well tend to have the larger racks which will make them more likely to reproduce. It's an important indicator as to which males are going to be healthy and strong enough to pass on genes to make the species stronger.
Reply:First off, it's moose and the plural is moose. You may see one moose or you might see many moose. Second, moose don't have horns, those are antlers. Cattle have horns. All ungulates of the deer family have antlers.





Yes, moose have antlers. Mostly used during mating season. They are shed and regrown every year. Unlike horn, which never sheds. Occasionally antlers are used for protection from wolfs. But, generally wolfs wont mess with a full grown male moose in full rut.





http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/pubs/noteboo...
Reply:To sum up all previous posts,





Big Antlers = More mating (sex) and more offspring (baby moose)





More offspring = more adult males with big antlers





NOTE: There is a severe cost to having large antlers, otherwise the antlers would always be getting larger and larger with each generation. The cost is the amount of energy required to grow the antlers (they are shed and must regrow each year), as well as the energy required to carry the antlers around while foraging and walking through the trees. So, the best size of antler is just big enough to make you the biggest, but not so large that you can't eat or hold your head up easily.





Hope this helps,


Lorax
Reply:the moose antlers are the fastest growing tissue on this planet all that mass sometimes over several hundred inches grows to maturity in just a matter of months which makes them uniuqe and yes they are used for fighting over females and marking there teritory they will also use them to kill moose calfs (baby) to intice the cow (mother) to come back in to heat all deer will do this that is why they lose there antlers



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