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Lichen on antlers?

Last year I saw a very nice OTC unit bull that the hunter down the forest road shot during the 3rd week of September. Beautiful dark antlers that had very small dots of what appeared to be Lichen growing on the lower third or so of the main beams.

Have any of you seen lichen on an elk's antlers? I assume he was hanging around in a shady damp area but didn't think lichen would grow that fast.

Bark from horning...seen it on various species.

Aspen, generally lichen is extremely slow growing and would not appear on antlers. My bet is that what you saw was actually bark from trees that had been mixed with sap etc. from rubbing that had formed a lichen like appearance on the bull's antlers.

More likely it got ground in during rubbing against a lichen-covered tree, but maybe it survived the transfer?

Not likely it could have grown there from a spore or whatever in a matter of weeks, I’d think.

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