Alces
Alces is a genus of artiodactyl mammals, that includes the largest species of the deer family.

Badzil · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- moosePBDB
- Sits inside
- AlceiniPBDB
- Diet
- grazer, browserPBDB, for Cervidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Cervidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Artiodactyla
Time the record covers
At least 5.3 million years on record.
The record covers at least 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 11.63 Mya to 0 Mya.
45 occurrences of Alces on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
45 occurrences- Miocene3%
- Pliocene5%
- Pleistocene74%
- Holocene18%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Alces has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 43 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Alces and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Alces and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
638 taxa- Equus15 sites
- Vulpes vulpes13 sites
- Canis lupus12 sites
- Cervus elaphus12 sites
- Bison priscus11 sites
- Cervus9 sites
- Megaloceros9 sites
- Sus scrofa9 sites
- Bison8 sites
- Capreolus capreolus8 sites
- Mammuthus meridionalis8 sites
- Microtus8 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus8 sites
- Anatidae7 sites
- Cricetus cricetus7 sites
- Lepus7 sites
- Ondatra zibethicus7 sites
- Rangifer tarandus7 sites
- Ursus arctos7 sites
- Bos primigenius6 sites
- Castor canadensis6 sites
- Castor fiber6 sites
- Equus caballus6 sites
- Mammuthus primigenius6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 45 sites for Alces, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
33 references- I giacimenti Quaternari di vertebrati fossili nell'Italia Nord-Orientale3
- New microstratigraphic horizons in the vertebrate chronology of the Hungarian Pleistocene3
- The Kor & Bot collection revisited, with a biostratigraphic interpretation of the Early Pleistocene Oosterschelde Fauna (Oosterschelde Estuary, the Netherlands)2
- Biochronology and evolution of the Early Pliocene to the Early Pleistocene mammalian faunas of Romania2
- Mittelpleistozane Saugetierfaunen aus Mitteleuropa - der Versuch einer biostratigraphischen Zuordnung2
- Säugetierfunde und Pleistozänstratigraphie in der Kolyma-Niederung (Pleistocene stratigraphy from the Kolyma fluvial plain and it's mammal fossils)2
- The Pleistocene vertebrates of Michigan2
- Die jungpleistozänen Säugetierfaunen aus dem Travertingebiet von Taubach-Weimar-Ehringsdorf (The Early Plestocene mammalian fauna from the travetin-area of Taubach-Weimar-Ehringsdorf)2
- Catalogue of Tertiary Fossil Sites of the Land Mammals in the U.S.S.R.2
- An Account of Some Kjoekkenmoeddings, or Shell-Heaps, in Maine and Massachusetts2
- The Eurogeul—first report of the palaeontological, palynological and archaeological investigations of this part of the North Sea1
- Revision d'un site paleontologique celebre: Saint-Prest (Chartres, France)1
Each of the 45 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 21 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Alces
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Badzil
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Alces”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itAlceini through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1821