![]() ![]() The Middle Irish word segh was also suggested as a reference to the Irish Elk. ExtinctionĪ folk memory of the Irish Elk was once thought to be preserved in the Middle High German word Shelch, a large beast mentioned in the 13th-century Nibelungenlied along with the then-extant aurochs ( Dar nach schluch er schiere, einen Wisent und einen Elch, Starcher Ure vier, und einen grimmen Schelch / "After this he straightway slew a Bison and an Elk, Of the strong Wild Oxen four, and a single fierce Schelch."). giganteus did not even have to turn its head to present the antlers to best effect, but could accomplish this by simply looking straight ahead. Indeed, Gould concluded that the large antler size and their position on the skull was very much maintained by sexual selection: they were morphologically ill-suited for combat between males, but their position was ideal to present them to intimidate rivals or impress females. This does not mean that sexual selection played no part in maintaining large antler size, only that the antlers of the species' ancestors were already large to begin with. Irish Elk had antlers of just the size one would predict from their body size. Gould demonstrated that for deer in general, species with a larger body size have antlers that are more than proportionately larger, a consequence of allometry, or differential growth rate of body size and antler size during development. ![]() It was not until Stephen Jay Gould's important 1974 essay on Megaloceros that this theory was tested rigorously. One theory was that their antlers, under constant and strong sexual selection, increased in size because males were using them in combat for access to females it was also suggested that they eventually became so unwieldy that the Irish Elk could not carry on the normal business of life and so became extinct. The size of Irish Elk antlers is distinctive, and several theories have arisen as to their evolution. Retrieved July 22, 2011.įront view of Megaloceros giganteus skeleton The misnamed, mistreated, and misunderstood Irish Elk. It is taxonomically a giant and completely extinct deer. It should be noted that the Irish Elk does not in any way directly correspond to any living species today, including even the Alaskan moose or North American elk. giganteus skeletons can be found at the Natural History Museum in Dublin. In body size, the Irish Elk matched the extant moose subspecies of Alaska ( Alces alces gigas) as the largest known deer. The Irish Elk stood about 2.1 metres (6.9 ft) tall at the shoulders, and it had the largest antlers of any known cervid (a maximum of 3.65 m (12.0 ft) from tip to tip and weighing up to 40 kilograms (88 lb)). ![]() giganteus antecedens - is similar but had more complex and compact antlers. The earlier taxon - sometimes considered a paleosubspecies M. Megaloceros giganteus first appeared about 400,000 years ago. ![]() Although most skeletons have been found in Irish bogs, the animal was not exclusively Irish and was not closely related to either of the living species currently called elk - Alces alces (the European elk, known in North America as the moose) or Cervus canadensis (the North American elk or wapiti) for this reason, the name "Giant Deer" is used in some publications. The latest known remains of the species have been carbon dated to about 7,700 years ago. Its range extended across Eurasia, from Ireland to east of Lake Baikal, during the Late Pleistocene. The Irish Elk or Giant Deer ( Megaloceros giganteus), was a species of Megaloceros and one of the largest deer that ever lived. Mounted skeleton at the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. Temporal range: Middle Pleistocene to Early Holocene ![]()
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