Megaloceros

Megaloceros is an extinct genus of deer whose members lived throughout Eurasia from the Pleistocene to the early Holocene. The type and only undisputed member of the genus, Megaloceros giganteus, vernacularly known as the "Irish elk" or "giant deer", is also the best known. Fallow deer are thought to be their closest living relatives. Megaloceros has been suggested to be closely related to other genera of "giant deer", like the East Asian genus Sinomegaceros and the largely European Praemegaceros, the species of both genera having been historically attributed to Megaloceros.

Megaloceros

Urville Djasim from The Netherlands · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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
Irish elkPBDB
Sits inside
CervinaePBDB
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 1.7 million years on record.

The record covers at least 1.8 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 7.246 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 0 of 81 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 2 of 81 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 77 of 81 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 1 of 81 occurrences7.5–7.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences7.2–7.0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences7.0–6.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences6.7–6.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences6.5–6.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences6.2–5.9 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences5.9–5.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences5.7–5.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences5.4–5.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences5.2–4.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.9–4.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.6–4.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.4–4.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.1–3.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.9–3.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.6–3.4 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences3.4–3.1 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences3.1–2.8 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences2.8–2.6 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences2.6–2.3 Mya — about 3 occurrences2.3–2.1 Mya — about 3 occurrences2.1–1.8 Mya — about 3 occurrences1.8–1.5 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.5–1.3 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.3–1.0 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.0–775 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences775 ka–516 ka Mya — about 17 occurrences516 ka–258 ka Mya — about 17 occurrences258 ka–0 Mya — about 26 occurrences1.8 Mya11.7 ka7.7 Mya0 Mya

81 occurrences of Megaloceros on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

81 occurrences

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

9 formations

Cromer Forest Bed — 52.46°N, 1.73°ECromer Forest Bed — 52.94°N, 1.25°EUnterer Travertin — 50.95°N, 11.38°EUnterer Travertin — 50.97°N, 11.35°ELishi — 34.17°N, 109.25°EDursunlu — 38.28°N, 31.91°EOberer Travertin I — 50.97°N, 11.35°EOberer Travertin II — 50.97°N, 11.35°ERed Crag — 51.96°N, 1.35°EForest Bed — 52.49°N, 1.53°EGuxiangtun — 45.92°N, 127.40°E

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The named rock units Megaloceros has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 63 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Megaloceros and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Megaloceros and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

589 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 75 sites for Megaloceros, 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

47 references

Each of the 81 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. 35 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 Megaloceros

Credit
Urville Djasim from The Netherlands
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

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

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 itCervinae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Brookes 1828