Giant deer (lat. Megaloceros) or big-horned deer are an extinct genus of the deer family (Cervidae) that lived from the Upper Pliocene to the Early Holocene in Eurasia and northern Africa. According to the latest genetic analyses, the closest living relative of the giant deer is the European fallow deer, not the red deer. Giant deer, despite the similarity of antlers, are not closely related to elk. The existence of the giant deer in Siberia is confirmed by a specimen of its antlers, given as a gift from Peter the Great to the Saxon king Augustus the Strong.

Although it is often associated with Western Europe, where its fossils were first found, Megaloceros was widespread throughout Eurasia. The type species of the genus Megaloceros, Megaloceros giganteus, is by far the largest and is better known by the names "Irish elk", "Irish deer", "giant deer" and "big antlered deer". However, the genus is known to have a varied range of sizes among numerous species, some of which show the influence of insular dwarfism. This phenomenon occurs in isolated populations on small islands of earth, the animals' body size becomes smaller with each successive generation, so they eat less plants and do not die of starvation. Besides Megaloceros, another Pleistocene mammal that shows strong insular dwarfism is the dwarf mammoth Exilis Mammuthus.

The picture below shows the species of giant deer (from left to right): M. savini, M. cazioti, M. obscurus, M. pachyosteus, M. giganteus, and M. verticornis

Early human cave art depicts a giant deer, with dark fur on its back and a white belly, much like modern deer. The drawings also show that Megaloceros had a small hump on its shoulders, which is interpreted as a device for storing fat reserves to survive in difficult times. The skeleton of giant deer in this place demonstrates, like that of elk, individually varying extensions of the vertebrae, which most likely also served as additional support for the muscles bearing heavy antlers. Possessed similar anatomical features Alces latifrons, whose horns were also extremely heavy. This adaptation is not unique to the deer; other large Eurasian mammals such as the woolly rhinoceros and even the mammoth had similar adaptations.

The large horns of Megaloceros were once the basis of a controversial theory about its extinction; it was believed that the horns grew so heavy that male Megaloceros could not even lift their heads when they had full antlers. Needless to say, this is considered unlikely, because animals so unadapted to life would not be able to continue the life of the species for several hundred thousand years. However, the original theory contains a grain of truth - the antlers were the weakness that did not allow the giant deer to adapt to new conditions.

Deer antlers are not permanent structures and after the breeding season the bucks always shed them so that they are left with two bloody stumps on the top of their heads. After this, a new set of antlers is grown and they grow quickly and reach full size in time for the next breeding season. This requires a good supply of nutrients from plants, but the buck's body also uses the nutrients stored in the bones to make up for any nutrient deficiencies in the regular diet. Climate change at the end of the Pleistocene becomes a factor contributing to changes in plant species growing in Eurasia. Not only did these new plants begin to replace the plants that Megaloceros typically ate, they also had a reduced mineral content.

This means that Megaloceros would have to rely on large amounts of reabsorption of beneficial minerals from their bones in order to continually grow their antlers. Without the necessary supply of nutrients from the diet to replace those used up, bones would steadily become weaker and weaker. Injuries such as broken bones became increasingly common, especially in connection with some strenuous activity such as escaping predators or fighting other males. The population decline fits perfectly with climate models. Giant deer are the first to disappear from areas where the climate began to change earliest, before surviving last in areas where new environmental conditions developed later.

BIG HORNED DEER BIG HORNED DEER

giant, or Irish, deer (Megaloceros giganteus), an extinct animal of the family. deer Known from the Middle and Upper Pleistocene North. Eurasia. It differed from other deer in its large stature and huge (up to 4 m in span) antlers. The structure of the teeth, skull and limbs shows that B. o. lived in wet meadows. Especially many skeletons were found in the peat bogs of Ireland. In the USSR, the remnants of B. o. often found in Paleolithic. human parking lots.

.(Source: “Biological Encyclopedic Dictionary.” Editor-in-chief M. S. Gilyarov; Editorial Board: A. A. Babaev, G. G. Vinberg, G. A. Zavarzin and others - 2nd ed., corrected . - M.: Sov.

(giant, or Irish, deer, Irish elk), extinct artiodactyl family. deer Existed in the middle and upper Pleistocene, in western Europe until the beginning of the Holocene (500 thousand - 9 thousand years ago). It was distinguished by huge (up to 3 m in span) horns, rounded at the base and flattened towards the ends, the absence of upper fangs and high-crowned molars. It was widespread in Eurasia and North Africa. Apparently lived in wet meadows or open swamps. Complete skeletons are often found in peat bogs, incl. in Ireland, as well as in Central Russia. Bones of big-horned deer are common at Paleolithic sites of early man. Images of this animal are often found in Paleolithic cave paintings.

.(Source: “Biology. Modern illustrated encyclopedia.” Chief editor A. P. Gorkin; M.: Rosman, 2006.)

See what "BIG-HORLED DEER" is in other dictionaries:

Bighorn deer † ... Wikipedia

Extinct artiodactyl mammal. Lived in the Pleistocene, in Eurasia. Horns up to 4 m in span. Remains of big-horned deer are often found at Paleolithic human sites... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

The giant or Irish deer (Megaloceros giganteus) is an extinct mammal of the deer family. Externally similar to a doe. Existed in the Pleistocene and early Holocene. He was distinguished by his large stature and huge (up to 4 m in span) horns, strongly...

Extinct artiodactyl mammal. Lived in the Pleistocene, in Eurasia. Horns up to 4 m in span. Remains of big-horned deer are often found at Paleolithic human sites. * * * BIG-HORNED DEER BIG-HORNED DEER (Megaloceros giganteus),… … Encyclopedic Dictionary

Extinct artiodactyl mammal. Lived in the Pleistocene, in Eurasia. Horns up to 4 m in span. Remains of B. o. often found in Paleolithic. human parking... Natural science. Encyclopedic Dictionary

Fossil mammal, the same as the Big-horned deer... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

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✪ JAPÓN 1: Prehistoria - Periodos Jomon, Yayoi y Kofun

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Now on sale... empire espadazos The following takes place between 30,000 years ago and 540 AD. But that's a different story Japanese prehistory - Jomon, Yayoi and Kofun periods PRE-Jomon and Jomon In order to discuss the history of Japan, we have to go back at least 30,000 years ago, when these islands were not like that, but were united into Asia due to the Ice Age. People began arriving in this place at least 30,000 years ago. The place was a huge tundra full of volcanoes erupting, but the fact is that these early Japanese people Molo the place and stayed there. “From here we will not move anyone” People came to the new place, but 10,000 B.C. The ice began to disappear, and this place became an archipelago continent. The four largest islands that make up it are: Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku. Some say that the mysterious remains of Yonaguni may have been created by an advanced civilization at that time, in 8000 BC, which saw rising sea levels eat everything. But... it's still being studied. “Can I hear it or not?” These primitive people lived in caves and hunted with their unreliable stone weapons and obsidian. Their prey included giant deer, elephants, tigers, bison, rhinoceroses and panthers, but were eventually extinguished. They will always be fishing. After the end of the Ice Age before the Japs, it was worth them adapting to the fashion of agriculture and livestock and other territories. This Mesolithic transitional period is known as the Jomon period, referring to the ceramics it began to develop here, perhaps the oldest in the world, characterized by rope marks. Over the centuries, evolved into more complex and figural ways of how you called the Great Dane. Perhaps the most striking is the Kamegaoka dogu. “Interesting, isn't it? This is not a man or a woman... It's everything you've seen before that you don't like. This is an advanced humanoid” The first settlements were built and 2000 BC. or so almost all places had a sedentary lifestyle. It is believed that dry rice cultivation began at the end of this period, although this was not widespread. Eventually, hunting and gathering brought out more. And the first cults. It seems that stone circles are made for their rituals, like those of Oyu, Akita Prefecture. The problem would arrive in the year 300 BC, when the Chinese were in full expansionism, and threw people out of their land. Everything indicates that there are still some contradictions, some Koreans decided to pack up and travel to the southern part of Japan, and this would create the Yayoi period. Yayoi period Yaaya culture came to Japan, particularly on the island of Kyushu, and they brought many achievements in various fields. New livestock and agricultural techniques such as wet rice cultivation, potter's wheel, bronze and iron metallurgy, spinning... As I said, there is a lot of controversy because it seems that many Japanese Koreans fuck their crap gave them quite a part of their culture , and many myths have been invented to hide it, but... it is what it is. “This... this is very bad” And then there is the question of the Ainu, another ethnic group that inhabits Hokkaido and is still quite discriminated against today. They could be the ancient Jomon or perhaps people who came much earlier are not well known. The problem is the language. According to linguistic theories, the Ainu is an isolated language, not related to any other, while the Korean and Japanese languages, like the originating Altaic languages ​​of the Altaic Massif, were separated perfectly. Which doesn't work for everyone with Yayoi migration. It is therefore believed that the Japanese derive from a different and much older Korean current dialect, but this is very difficult to understand. “But... what language do you speak here? I don’t...” Moreover, it is difficult to understand what happened during this time, but it seems certain that there is violence. villages with fences and walls were built, weapons such as spears and arrows, and perhaps even swords. In addition, it also highlights the famous dotak bells, they used to have scenes of the daily life of these people, and mirrors, ashtrays that are larger than everything else. Apparently Yayoi small groups settled in the Kanto plain downwards, a time of mixing with the locals, while many of the Jomon remained in the north, and his acceptance of Yayoi's progress would be the latest. They began to form the first confederations of tribes in the south, and these Yayoi clans seized power from many of them to subjugate many of the rice field farmers. There have been no emperors until now, but legends speak of a founder or first emperor named Jimmu, a descendant of the goddess Amaterasu, who seized power in 660 BC. after he united most of the country. Currently in Japan there is a holiday for him SOLICO. For him they come several emperors or even legendary leaders that there are no historical sources. Later we find Chinese chronicles of what must have been a powerful war in the country of Wa or Japan. Maybe within or maybe against the Korean kingdom between 150 and 300 AD. The winner would be a queen named Himiko, from an unknown kingdom or chiefdom they call Yamatai. Interestingly, the Raider reboot of the 2013 Tomb video game revolves around the queen and legend Yamatai. It's really fun. Some people associated with this queen consort were Empress Jingom, who after the death of her husband, Emperor Chuai, reigned for 60 years, and conquered part of modern Korea. The first emperor was considered the historical Ojin of his son, although they say that he lived 110 years. “We are deception. Don't deceive us to tell us the truth..." Kofun period From 300 to 700 we entered the Kofun period, the period of ancient tombs, because people began to bury people in giant mounds near cities, most of them keyhole shaped and clay figurines , called Haniwa, representing from people to horses. The Kofun mound is more than a cucumber all this is the son of Ojin, Ningtok, who reigned until 400 in the province of Yamato, now Nara in central Honshu. Who made these mounds? As new elites emerged to rule the place, a state called Yamato, formed by the nobility of Yaya. This period is very important because this is where the foundations of the Japanese state come from. There were three classes in this political system. The Uji elite were like the Roman patricians; they thought they came from a mythical ancestor. At that time there would have been over 1000 clans, but there was one that stood above the rest: the Yamato clan. It was the most powerful because it was said to be descended from the great goddess Amaterasu of the Shinto pantheon. This goddess he built the famous Isu Shrine in Mie and Izuma Prefecture. Among other ujis also they had a little more energy than others. Kobetsu were closest to Emperor Uji, and shinbetsu were the most peripheral, as might be Sogu. Each Uji is clustered in their own Kuni, i.e. territory controlled by them and exploitation. The second class was B, servants of the first, they did the typical tasks of the time. There were farmers, artisans, fishermen, potters... And finally, the third class was the Yatsuko, a kind of subordinate officials. They were accountants, scribes, administrators... and all without vacations or coffee with curasanes. “Fuck me, yeah?” At that time, several independent Chinese kingdoms appeared on the Korean Peninsula: Goguryeo, Silla, Baekje and Gaya. It was the last of which Japan had a Chinese script, which became a Prestige script thanks to all the literary works that brought Buddhists to the continent in 300. In gratitude, Yamato helped them fight the other two kingdoms by 391 and founded the Mimana colony on the Korean coast. By 540 the Emperor of Japan was Kimmei, and in that year received into his palace their Korean allies led by Rei Seong. This episode was the most important gifts he brought. Buddha statue and several sutras. Within a few days, Song had a grille for the poor emperor: “Buddhism is mole eggs, uncle, comes from India and these people are cock.” And it seems that he was convinced, and the religion filtered among the elite. “That’s good. Thank you.” From the time when Beliefs, Shinto Ki and Buddhist, went syncretizing among the Japanese. And not only did the traditions, music and dance, like the music of Gagaku court or the kemari ball game, come out of the Chinese game of tsuju, they arose among the various centers of power. tensions that made the Yamato trial may remove from the city of Nara Asuka Valley, south, around 540, where arts, religion and politics merged "Siiiiii" Says that the moment we move from the old Japanese prehistory period known as Asuka. period that they put some in the Kofun period and others, in addition to being and Kofun as the Asuka Yamato period of the part. But come on, we can say we are entering in old age.

Distribution and species

One of the early species of giant deer called Megaloceros obscurus existed in the Lower Pleistocene. It was a species from the lineage that led to the famous big-horned deer (Latin: Megaloceros giganteus), which appeared about 400 thousand years ago and became extinct about 7600 years ago. Its remains are found from North Africa and Western Europe to Siberia and China. Numerous finds have been made in peat bogs in Ireland and Germany. This probably shows that giant deer were also found in forest areas, and not only in steppe areas, as is sometimes assumed. During the coldest periods, giant deer were absent from Europe. They finally disappeared from Europe about 11.5 thousand years ago and were found for another three thousand years in Siberia. Giant deer never reached North America. There their biological niche was occupied by the species Cervalces scotti, which was outwardly a kind of mixture of elk and wapiti and became extinct before the genus of giant deer.

According to the latest genetic analyses, the closest living relative of giant deer is the European fallow deer, not the red deer. Giant deer, despite the similarity of antlers, are not closely related to elk.

The existence of the giant deer in Siberia is confirmed by a specimen of its antlers, given as a gift from Peter the Great to the Saxon king Augustus the Strong. Now these horns are placed in the center of a collection of hunting trophies in one of the halls of the Moritzburg hunting castle near Dresden.

Description

The most famous species of the giant deer genus is the species Megaloceros giganteus, whose height at the withers was about two meters and corresponded to the size of modern moose. However, it was lighter and had longer legs. The antlers, found only on males, were much larger in size than the antlers of all living deer. They reached a span of 3.6 m and were among the largest head growths ever possessed by ungulates. What is particularly noteworthy is that the giant deer shed these antlers every year and, in a short period of time, regained them again, just as deer do today. And yet, despite their name and the unique scale of their antlers, giant deer were not the largest deer of all time. Even modern moose, especially those found in Alaska, exceed them in weight, and some extinct species, such as the broad-faced moose, which reached 1400 kg Cervalces latifrons, were significantly larger.

Because Megaloceros giganteus depicted in numerous cave and rock paintings of people from the last Ice Age, researchers believe that it played a large role in the hunting of primitive people. In most drawings he is depicted with a dark brown back and a light chest, from which we can conclude that this was the real color of his fur. Some images show a triangular hump-like structure in the shoulder area. The skeleton of giant deer in this place shows, like elk, individually varying extensions of the vertebrae, which most likely served as additional support for the muscles bearing heavy antlers. Possessed similar anatomical features Alces latifrons. We can assume that they lived in groups, like most of the living large

Bighorn deer, giant deer, or Irish deer(Megaloceros giganteus), is an extinct mammal of the genus Megaloceros.

Externally, the big-horned deer is similar to the fallow deer, but is much larger. It was distinguished by its large height, up to 2 meters at the withers, and huge horns - up to 5.2 m in span, greatly expanded at the top in the shape of a shovel with several branches!

Existed in the Pleistocene and early Holocene in Eurasia and northern Africa.

One of the earliest types giant deer called Megaloceros obscurus existed in the lower Pleistocene. It was a species from the lineage that led to the famous big-horned deer (Megaloceros giganteus), which appeared about 400 thousand years ago and became extinct about 7,600 years ago. Its remains are found from North Africa and Western Europe to Siberia and China.

The structure of the teeth, limbs and antlers shows that the big-horned deer lived in wet meadows. He could not live in the forests, because with such a “decoration” on his head it was impossible to walk through the forest.

But, nevertheless, numerous finds of big-horned deer skeletons were made in the peat bogs of Ireland and Germany. These findings suggest that giant deer could also be found in forest areas.

During the coldest periods, giant deer were absent from Europe. They finally disappeared from Europe about 11.5 thousand years ago and were found for another three thousand years in Siberia.

Giant deer never reached North America. There their biological niche was occupied by the species Cervalces scotti, which was outwardly some kind of mixture moose and wapiti - a subspecies of red deer, previously living in North America, close to the red deer and extinct before the emergence of the genus of giant deer.

According to the latest genetic analyses, the closest living relative of the giant deer is the European fallow deer, not the red deer.

But giant deer, despite the similarity of antlers, are not closely related to elk.

The existence of the giant deer in Siberia is confirmed by a specimen of its antlers, given as a gift from Peter the Great to the Saxon king Augustus the Strong. Now these horns are placed in the center of a collection of hunting trophies in one of the halls of the Moritzburg hunting castle near Dresden.

The most famous species of the giant deer genus is the species Megaloceros giganteus, whose height at the withers was about two meters and corresponded to the size of modern moose. However, it was lighter and had longer legs.

The antlers, found only on males, were far larger in size than those of all living deer, and were among the largest head growths ever possessed by an ungulate.

What is particularly noteworthy is that the giant deer shed these antlers every year and, in a short period of time, regained them again, just as deer do today.

And yet, despite their name and the unique scale of their antlers, giant deer were not the largest deer of all time. Even modern moose, especially those found in Alaska, exceed them in weight, and some extinct species, such as, for example, reached 1400 kg in weight. broad-faced moose Cervalces latifrons, were significantly larger.

Skeleton of Megaloceros giganteus

Since Megaloceros giganteus is depicted in numerous cave and rock paintings of people from the last Ice Age, researchers assume that it played a large role in the hunting of primitive people.

In most drawings he is depicted with a dark brown back and a light chest, from which we can conclude that this was the real color of his fur. Some images show a triangular hump-like structure in the shoulder area.

The skeleton of giant deer in this place, like that of elk, shows individually varying extensions of the vertebrae, which most likely served as additional support for the muscles bearing heavy antlers.

Possessed similar anatomical features Alces latifrons, whose horns were also extremely heavy.

Not all species of giant deer were large. Dwarf island forms are also known.

Megaloceros cazioti, lived in Corsica and Sardinia and developed from Megaloceros verticornis, reached only one meter at the withers, and his horns were much smaller.

Cretan form Megaloceros cretensis was even smaller, measuring no more than 60 cm at the withers. With its short horns, it was more reminiscent of muntjacs (Muntiacus), small deer living in South and Southeast Asia, with a fairly simple structure of horns - each horn has only one, maximum two branches no more than 15 centimeters long

Unlike moose, which feed on leaves and bark in winter, giant deer fed primarily on grasses.

They probably, unlike moose, grazed in groups, like most of the living large ungulates.

It was previously assumed that the giant deer became extinct due to the expansion of forests at the end of the last ice age. It was also believed that in forest areas large horns were a hindrance, especially when fleeing from enemies.

But giant deer were highly successful animals for hundreds of thousands of years, and their extinction was part of a general process of extinction of large animals that affected many other species.

In the territory of the former USSR, most of the remains of big-horned deer are found in ancient Stone Age human sites in the middle and southern latitudes, including the Crimea, the North Caucasus and Kazakhstan; entire skeletons were found in the Ryazan and Sverdlovsk regions.

List of used literature

Vislobokova I.A. History of big-horned deer (Megacerini, Cervidae, Artiodactyla) / M.: GEOS, 2012

Trofimov B. A. Fundamentals of paleontology: Mammals. M.: 1962.

Martin P.S. Quaternary Extinctions. The University of Arizona Press, 1984.

Koenigswald W. Lebendige Eiszeit. Theiss-Verlag, 2002.

“Crowned” with impressive antlers, with a graceful and at the same time powerful body, red deer (Cervus elaphus), known for their trumpeting voice during the rut, are popular heraldic symbols and a favorite hunting trophy of the “old” and “new” aristocracy of the planet. But the many times greater greatness of the extinct relative of the red deer, discovered at the end of the 18th century in the Irish swamps, prompted the British authorities to depict the ideal heraldic deer on the coat of arms of Northern Ireland.

Introduced in 1924, the Northern Irish coat of arms, designed by the Ulster herald Neville Wilkinson, showcased the greatness of Northern Ireland in the Irish elk that once inhabited the land. Today this coat of arms is not official, as well as the “Irish-moose” definition of the species of giant deer

What was the largest deer from the deer family (Cervidae), where and when did it live, how did it get such huge antlers and why did it become extinct - the questions discussed in this article.

Bighorn Deer Fossil Discovery

The first fossilized fragments of the antlers of a giant deer (Megaloceros giganteus) were found in peat bogs in Ireland in 1588. The first attempt to describe a creature with such huge antlers was made in 1697 by the Irish doctor Thomas Molyneux, who called the deer with majestic antlers a special creation of nature itself, which deliberately distinguished it from the herd of other four-legged animals. Later, big-horned deer skulls were discovered in Yorkshire, England (1746), followed by Germany (1781).

Irish peat bogs have yielded numerous Megaloceros giganteus fossils (more or less complete skeletons) of more than 100 individuals over the past 200 years. Reconstructed skeletal structures of deer giants are presented in all archaeological museums in Ireland

The fossilized remains of the greatest of the deer caused numerous disputes between naturalists of the 17th century - why did such a perfect creation of God become extinct, as God allowed it to do? Then the author of the first description of the big-horned deer, Thomas Molyneux, expressed the opinion that no species of living creatures became completely extinct. He called the quadruped with giant antlers the “Irish moose,” claiming its close relationship with the American moose.

Georges Cuvier spoke out against species “immortality,” who put forward, precisely on the basis of the “Irish moose,” a theory about the periodic complete death of most creatures of the animal world due to unknown global catastrophes. Cuvier proved that the big-horned deer is not an analogue of the American moose or any other representative of horned quadrupeds modern in the 18th-19th centuries.

As fossil research expanded over the following centuries, fragments and complete skeletons of giant deer were often discovered throughout Europe, North Africa and Asia. In the post-Soviet space, archaeologists have repeatedly found bones of big-horned deer at Stone Age human sites in the middle and southern latitudes. Complete skeletons of Megaloceros giganteus were found in the Sverdlovsk and Ryazan regions of the 20th century, which, among other things, made it possible to reconstruct its appearance.

What was the big-horned giant like?

This deer bore antlers that were structurally similar to those of modern elk and reindeer, i.e. discarded after the next mating season and grown again by August (the beginning of the rut). Adult males of Megaloceros giganteus were the largest deer in Earth's history.

Physically, the giant deer was in many ways similar to the modern red deer, only much more powerful and larger.
The heavy horns of the giant required special reinforcement of the cervical spine, otherwise it would have been impossible to hold them

The body height of the giant deer at the withers (at the beginning of the neck in the upper part of the back) was about 2.1 meters. Adult males weighed over 680 kg. For comparison:

• Chukchi moose (Alces alces buturlini), the largest species of the moose genus, grows up to 2.15 m at the withers and reaches a weight of more than 700 kg (males);
• the common red deer (Cervus elaphus hippelaphus), the largest species of the deer family, reaches 1.3 m in height at the withers and weighs up to 170 kg (males);
• The caribou reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), the only modern species of the reindeer genus, reaches a height of 1.41 m at the withers and a maximum weight of 194 kg (males).

Standing out for its size and body weight, the giant deer is especially surprising in the width of its antlers. Megaloceros giganteus had the largest antlers of any living or extinct member of the deer family - over 3.65 m from left to right and weighing over 40 kg, almost twice the size of an adult moose (1.99 m)!

The obvious reason for the development of such large antlers was the consistent interest in them of female big-horned deer, who chose not only the largest, but also the most antlered males for procreation. Subsequently, it was sexual selection for antler size that became one of the reasons for the complete extinction of the giant deer species.

Lifestyle of a giant deer

Representatives of the species Megaloceros giganteus, along with the other five species of the genus Megaloceros, inhabited vast areas of Eurasia from Ireland to northern China for 2.5 million years - from the late Pliocene to the late Pleistocene, which ended approximately 12,000 years ago.

The image shows the comparative body sizes of a Megaloceros giganteus deer and an Early Neolithic human. It is obvious that herbivorous giants were desirable prey for tribal hunters

The vast steppes of Eurasia provided thousands of herds of big-horned deer with the necessary space for a successful life. For most of the year, the forests were inaccessible to males of Megaloceros giganteus, since it was impossible to make their way between the trunks and branches of trees with antlers almost four meters wide.

Judging by the annual antler cycle of modern deer, such as the red deer, increased testosterone production stimulated the growth of the giant deer's war antlers from spring to winter, its last month. And if the largest modern Cervus elaphus antlers grow at the fastest rate of 2.5 cm per day, then in the big-horned deer they grew twice as fast - up to 5 cm daily.

To “feed” the antlers that grow back every year, giant deer needed a special plant diet containing huge amounts of calcium. Big-horned giants fed mainly on calciphyllous plants growing in calcium-rich soils. This diet is supported by a study of the molar tooth of Megaloceros giganteus, found in coastal sediments of the North Sea. An analysis of the contents of the molar folds showed a significant presence of pollen from plants of the aster family (Asteroideae), in particular wormwood (Artemisia).

Among the 605 drawings of animals discovered in the Lascaux cave (France), only one big-horned deer Megaloceros is depicted. Perhaps prehistoric artists did not want to paint giant deer (a horse, for example, was drawn 364 times) so as not to frighten off the hunting luck - these deer served as the main prey for the inhabitants of the cave

Megaloceros giganteus reached its greatest horn mass in autumn. To wear them, the deer needed a powerful neck and a strong skull. But after all, males annually participated in battles for females, so the neck muscles had to not only bear huge horns, but also support combat loads. In sum, taking into account the physical dimensions of the skeleton, the giant deer was perhaps not the fastest, but it was a very strong herbivore, capable of resisting even the largest predators of the Pleistocene - giant cheetahs, cave bears, hyenas and lions.

For hundreds of thousands of years, giant deer inhabited Eurasia, improving their organisms through the process of natural selection and growing impressive antlers, but... 12 thousand years ago, their population, numbering many hundreds of thousands of individuals, completely died out. As, indeed, were most representatives of the megafauna of the late Pleistocene...

Why did the largest deer become extinct?

The wonderful (for the megafauna that existed at that time) period of glaciations of the late Pleistocene, which lasted more than 114 thousand years, ended approximately 14 thousand years ago. Moreover, it ended very suddenly - with global warming (Allerød warming). Average annual temperatures “warmed” by 6-8 o C, causing the melting of the largest glaciers in northern Eurasia and profoundly changing the tundra-steppe familiar to giant deer into waterlogged steppes.

Tens of millennia of the ice age, which lasted throughout the Pleistocene, formed stable biomes in Eurasia and provided the existence of hundreds of thousands of herbivores and megafauna predators. The image artistically represents the landscape, flora and fauna of the Eurasian tundra steppes, typical of the late Pleistocene

Trees immediately took advantage of the warming climate, beginning to form forests and annually reclaim free areas of the steppes. Warming has disrupted thousands of years of stability in plant diversity, severely limiting food sources for herbivores.

Together with other representatives of the fauna of the Pleistocene megafauna, giant deer moved to the northern territories of Eurasia, where their usual living conditions were still preserved near the glaciers. But these “oases” of the tundra-steppes soon disappeared.

The subsequent sharp cooling of the climate on the planet, which occurred approximately 13 thousand years ago due to the fall of a kilometer-long asteroid in the modern Canadian province of Quebec, did not last long - about 100 years. It was unable to restore the former “glacial” climate. Giant deer, like mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses and many other animals of that era, completely died out from the lack of plant food that they were accustomed to eating.

Human participation in the extinction of big-horned deer

At all times, people have been interested in representatives of the deer family from a gastronomic point of view - their meat is tasty, and it is relatively easy to get deer. It is not for nothing that in the Middle Ages, European aristocrats completely prohibited deer hunting for commoners, otherwise they themselves would not have enough.

Since ancient times, the largest species of the deer family have been the objects of constant human hunting, since their meat is tasty and their antlers are an excellent trophy. If it were not for state-level protective measures taken in the last century almost everywhere on Earth, red deer could have been completely destroyed as a species

By 13,000 years ago, a warming climate also uncomfortably limited the eating habits of ancient people, who were accustomed to eating deer meat. Armed with javelins (short spears) and bows and arrows, prehistoric hunters caught large specimens of Megaloceros giganteus even alone - the help of fellow tribesmen was required only to carry the next butchered carcass and protect the prey from predatory representatives of the Pleistocene megafauna.

Faced with a lack of large game in the mid-latitudes of Eurasia, tribal hunters followed it to the northern lands and continued hunting, without worrying about the inevitable complete destruction of the main food resources of early Neolithic man. Indeed, our very distant ancestors took an active part in reducing the fauna to suit their food interests.

However, it was the mass extinction of most of the Pleistocene megafauna, which previously served as the main diet of tribal hunters and gatherers, that forced ancient humanity to look for new ways of survival - to create and develop agriculture, and engage in cattle breeding. This is how man moved for the first time from a consuming to a producing economy, which ultimately made it possible to increase the number of homo sapiens many times over and, after millennia, to create a modern society.