‘tusks’ of a musk deer

Musk deer are small in size, and they are without antlers! However, musk deer have two sabre-like tusks growing out from the upper teeth, which can grow up to 4 inch long (the females have shorter tusks). The deer can pull the tusks back into the mouth while eating grass from the ground, and, mostly males, use these tusks during breeding season (called ‘rutting’) to fight with other males!

The most important feature of the musk deer is that the males have strong smelling glands in pouches (= bag-like skin folds) on their abdomens, which they use to attract the females.  The word ‘musk’ comes from Persian and Latin, and from old Sanskrit “mushkas” which mans ‘testes’ (= the small round organs, usually placed in a pouch, that are part of a male animal sex organs)!

musk deer’s musk glands

These glands, called ‘pods or musk pods’ secrete a strong smelling (pungent) oily substance which is dried and used as the base in the manufacture of perfumes, soaps, and in folk (or traditional) medicine in China and Japan! This substance, also called ‘musk’, is considered the most expensive substance in the animal products. A gram of it is worth $2 to $ 3, and sometimes it is sold at three times the price of gold!!

Thousands of musk deer have been hunted for their ‘musk’ for thousands of years.  In some parts of the present world, people are trying to farm musk deer for their ‘musk’!  And, it is believed that the present perfumes contain only ‘synthetic musk’ (= strong smelling substance made from chemical substances, not from the real musk deer)!!