The Irish Elk (Megaloceros giganteus) is an extinct deer that lived in Europe during the Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene epochs. It is famous for its formidable size (about two meters at the shoulders), and in particular for having the largest antlers of any known deer. The name “giant deer” is sometimes preferred; although large numbers of its skeletons have been found in Irishbogs, the animal was not exclusively Irish, and neither was it closely related to either of the living species currently called “elk”.
The latest known remains of the Irish elk have been carbon dated to about 5700 BC.
The size of the Irish Elk's antlers is remarkable, and some evolutionists have felt that their purpose demands an explanation. One theory was that the Elk's antlers, under constant 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 Elks could not carry on the normal business of life and so became extinct. However, Stephen Jay Gould's important essay on Megaloceros demonstrated that for deer in general, species with larger body size have antlers that are more than proportionately larger, a consequence of a differential growth rate of body size and antler size during development. In fact, Irish elk had antlers of exactly the size one would predict from their body size and no special story of natural selection is required.
External links
Computermade picture from "Walking with Beasts"[1] (http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/beasts/photo/photo_zoom5.html)
Factfile from BBC[2] (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/461.shtml)
University of Berkleys page "The Case of the Irish Elk"[3] (http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/artio/irishelk.html)
Bibliography
Stuart, A. J., P. A. Kosintsev, T. F. G. Higham, and A. M. Lister. Pleistocene to holocene extinction dynamics in giant deer and woolly mammoth. Nature 431: 684-689 (October 07, 2004)
Megaloceros giganteus was a giantdeer that evolved during the glacial periods of the Pleistocene epoch 250,000 to 12,000 years ago.
Female giantdeer are much rarer fossils in museums, partly because of their lack of the antlers which attract a collector's attention to the male specimens.
The giantdeer may have been known to the Palaeolithic painters of the cave of Cougnac, in France but they became extinct in Ireland before people are known to have arrived.
The name "Irish" has stuck because excellent, well-preserved fossils of the giantdeer are especially common in lake sediments and peat bogs in Ireland.
Beyond its arresting size and singular appearance, the giantdeer is of great significance to paleontologists because of the way in which the animal has become involved in evolutionary debates down through the years.
The Irishelk was once considered a prime example of orthogenesis: it was thought that its lineage had started evolving on an irreversible trajectory towards larger and larger antlers.
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