Cervus megaceros
| Irish elk Temporal range: Middle to Early Holocene, 0.781–0.008 Ma |
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| Mounted skeleton in Bremen | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Family: | Cervidae |
| Subfamily: | Cervinae |
| Genus: | †Megaloceros |
| Species: | †M. giganteus |
| Binomial name | |
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Megaloceros giganteus (Blumenbach, 1799) |
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| Synonyms | |
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†Megaceros giganteus |
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†Megaceros giganteus
†Megaloceros giganteus giganteus
The Irish elk (Megaloceros giganteus) also called the giant deer or Irish giant deer, is an extinct species of deer in the genus Megaloceros and is one of the largest deer that ever lived. Its range extended across Eurasia during the , from Ireland to Siberia to China. A related form is recorded in China during the . The most recent remains of the species have been carbon dated to about 7,700 years ago in Siberia. Although most skeletons have been found in bogs in Ireland, the animal was not exclusive to Ireland 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, instead of "Irish elk". A study has suggested that the Irish elk was closely related to the Red deer (Cervus elaphus). However, other phylogenetic analyses support the idea of a sister-group relationship between fallow deer (Dama dama) and the Irish elk.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it began to be apparent to scientists that many fossilized specimens being discovered did not represent any organisms that were currently living on earth. The Irish elk was among these specimens. Neither exclusive to Ireland nor an elk, it was named so because the most well-known and best preserved fossil specimens have been found in lake sediments and peat bogs in Ireland. The Irish elk had a far-reaching range, being located throughout Europe, northern Africa, and some related forms located in China. The first scientists’ descriptions of the elk erroneously confused the animal with the American moose, while other scientists believed the elk was identical to the European reindeer. These scientists did not have the current conception of evolutionary biology that we have now. They did not consider extinction, believing instead that the unexplained fossils had living descendants in undiscovered parts of the globe. French scientist Georges Cuvier was the first to challenge that notion, documenting that the Irish elk did not belong to any species of mammal that was living at the time. His study of the Irish elk was a key moment in the history of the study of extinction.
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Wikipedia