Odocoileus lucasi
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Odocoileus lucasi Temporal range: late |
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| Mounted skeleton | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Family: | Cervidae |
| Subfamily: | Capreolinae |
| Genus: |
Odocoileus Hay, 1927 |
| Species: | †O. lucasi |
| Binomial name | |
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Odocoileus lucasi (Hay, 1927) |
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Odocoileus lucasi, historically incorrectly confused with Navahoceros fricki, and known as the American mountain deer, is an extinct species of North American deer.
Kurten described a species he called Navahoceros fricki in 1975. However, his analysis has been questioned based on technical grounds and new paleontological data. Kurten’s analysis presented in 1,5 pages was based on averages of length of dissociated bones (samples sizes 9–52), without specifying the sex nor age of the source animals, nor providing standard deviations to let the reader know about variability due to sex and age. As neither the museum catalog numbers were listed, it is impossible to duplicate his analysis.
One comparative element he used were the skeletal measurements of a single (1) mule deer, but he did not provide the data on sex, age or locality. However, from data provided by Klein (1964) and McMahon (1975), the relative lower leg length of mule deer can vary at least by 22%.
Kurten also stated that Navahoceros resembled ibex (Capra ibex) based on short metapodials which made him label the Navahoceros as a mountain deer with an Alpine climbing mode of locomotion (like ibex), but without providing data on ibex. However, data from Fernandez and Monchot (2007) on ibex show that their bone measurements are far from the averages of Navahoceros presented by Kurten.
Kurten made the explicit correlation that Hippocamelus was related to Navahoceros, only differing by having two, instead of three antler tines, and he thus considered Hippocamelus implicitly to be homologous to chamois and ibex. However, Hippocamelus grow 4 and even 5 tines on each antler, invalidating Kurten's claim, and regarding skeletal proportion, he provided no data on Hippocamelus. Recently, complete appendages were compared between Hippocamelus bisulcus, Mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus), ibex, Himalayan Tahr (Hemitragus jemlahicus), Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis), Navahoceros, Chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra), Ovis ammon, Tule elk (Cervus nannodes), Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), Odocoileus lucasi, Red deer (Cervus elaphus), and Antilope cervicapra. Huemul morphology did not overlap with rock climbing species previously considered analogous, but falls within the range of other cervids. In fact, considering the reported variation on leg proportions among several cervids, which can reach 70%, there are Rangifer and Odocoileus virginianus populations with shorter legs than the H. bisulcus sample (by 14%).
Morejohn and Dailey (2004) published the analysis of the osteological anatomy and morphology of a practically complete skeleton of a adult male, Odocoileus lucasi (Hay 1927) along with other collections labeled as O. lucasi. Moreover, for their 54-page analysis they visited most collections of samples identified as Navahoceros as well as other species for a comparative analysis (Cervalces scotti, Alces alces, Rangifer tarandus, Odocoileus hemionus, O. virginianus, Hippocamelus antisensis, H. bisulcus, Mazama americana, Pudu mephistophiles, P. puda, Ozotoceros bezoarticus, Blastocerus dichotomus), located in 27 different institutions worldwide. They also dissected and analyzed fresh materials of Alces, Cervus, Mazama, Odocoileus hemionus and O. virginianus, Ozotoceros, Pudu, and Rangifer.
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