Megaloceros Fossil Bone cm 19.5 Irish Elk Jaw Giant Deer Megaloceros giganteus (9)

Description

Origin : Holland (North Sea)

Geological era : Late Pleistocene

Age : 30,000 - 50,000 years

Size : 320 gr - cm 19.5 x 10 x 3

Fossil Bone Jaw of Irish Elk a Prehistoric Giant Deer cm 19.5 x 10 x 3 - gr 320. This is the Fossil of lower jaw emiarch of Megaloceros giganteus.

The Irish Elk or Giant Deer was a species of Megaloceros and one of the largest deer that ever lived. Its range extended across Eurasia, from Ireland to east of Lake Baikal, during the Late Pleistocene. The latest known remains of the species have been carbon dated to the early Holocene about 11,000 years ago. Its old common name Irish Elk is misleading. Although large numbers of skeleton have been found in Irish bogs, the animal was not exclusively Irish, and neither was it closely related to either of the living species currently called elk; for this reason, the name "Giant Deer" is preferred in more recent publications. Megaloceros giganteus appeared for the first about 400,000 years ago. It evolved possibly from M. antecedens.
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)). In body size, the Irish Elk matched the extant Moose subspecies of Alaska as the largest known deer. A significant collection of M. giganteus skeletons can be found at the Natural History Museum in Dublin.