A diverse array of mammal headgear is on display in the Museum’s Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation as part of the Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Collections Core.
Alvaro Keding/ ©AMNH
Although the horns of cattle, gazelles and goats look very different to the antlers of deer and the ossicones on the head of a giraffe, and indeed, they are constructed differently, the cells they develop from in the embryo are the cells of the 'neural crest' that also develop into the face rather than the rest of the cranium. That and the fact that the underlying genetic control of their growth is sufficiently similar, provides compelling evidence that they share a common origin from which they, and the orders of which they are typical, have diverged.
This is the conclusion of two researchers at the American Museum of Natural History and Baruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center, who have just published their findings, open access in the journal, Communications Biology. It is also explained in an American Museum of Natural History press release:
