![]() ![]() The original description was considered by Adrian Lister in 1987 to be inadequate for a taxonomic definition. giganteus, making the former a junior synonym. The type and only species named in the description being Megaloceros antiquorum, based on Irish remains now considered to belong to M. The etymology being from Greek: μεγαλος megalos “great” + κερας keras “horn, antler”. Anatomical and Zoological Preparations, p 20. (Irish), with unusually fine horns, (in part restored) In 1827 Joshua Brookes, in a listing of his zoological collection, named the new genus Megaloceros (spelled Megalocerus in the earlier editions) in the following passageĪmongst other Fossil Bones, there … two uncommonly fine Crania of the Megalocerus antiquorum (Mihi). French scientist Georges Cuvier documented in 1812 that the Irish elk did not belong to any species of mammal currently living, declaring it “le plus célèbre de tous les ruminans fossiles”. It was first formally named as Alce gigantea by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in his Handbuch der Naturgeschichte in 1799, with Alce being a variant of Alces, the Latin name for the Elk. ![]() The first scientific descriptions of the animal’s remains were made by Irish physician Thomas Molyneux in 1695, who identified large antlers from Dardistown, Dublin-which were apparently commonly unearthed in Ireland-as belonging to the Elk (known as the Moose in North America), concluding that it was once abundant on the island. Although one study suggested that the Irish elk was closely related to the red deer (Cervus elaphus), most other phylogenetic analyses support that their closest living relatives are fallow deer (Dama dama). For this reason, the name “giant deer” is used in some publications, instead of “Irish elk”. The most recent remains of the species have been carbon dated to about 7,700 years ago in western Russia.Īlthough abundant skeletal remains have been found in bogs in Ireland, the animal was not exclusive to Ireland nor 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). Its range extended across Eurasia during the Pleistocene, from Ireland to Lake Baikal in Siberia. The Irish elk (Megaloceros giganteus) also called the giant deer or Irish deer, is an extinct species of deer in the genus Megaloceros and is one of the largest deer that ever lived. ![]()
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