Megaloceros
| Megaloceros | ||||||||||||
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Reconstruction of some species of Megaloceros |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Lower Pleistocene to Lower / Middle Holocene | ||||||||||||
| 2 million years to 8,000 years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Megaloceros | ||||||||||||
| Blumenbach , 1799 | ||||||||||||
Megaloceros (also called giant deer ) was a genus of very large deer thatlivedin Eurasia and northern Africaduring the late Pleistocene and early Holocene periods .
Distribution and types
One of the early species was Megaloceros obscurus from the lower Pleistocene. It was the first type of line that led to the well-known Megaloceros giganteus . Megaloceros giganteus appeared about 400,000 years ago and died out at the end of the last glacial period . Its remains can be found in Eurasia and North Africa.
Numerous finds come from Irish moors, and a number of finds are also known from Germany. Here the species occurred both in the glacial periods and in the interglacial periods. This possibly shows that the animal also found a livelihood in wooded regions and was not dependent on steppe areas, as is sometimes assumed. In the coldest sections of the glacial period, however, the species was rarely found in Central Europe or was completely absent.
In Europe, the giant deer died out 11,500 years ago and was then confined to Siberia. In Western Siberia, the species apparently survived into the early Holocene and only died out around 7600 years ago. North America never reached Megaloceros .
Way of life
In contrast to the elk , which is a typical leaf eater, Megaloceros mainly fed on grasses. It is assumed that, like many of today's larger ungulates, he lived in groups and that the male giant deer, like today's deer, fought ritualized fights among one another.
description
The best-known species Megaloceros giganteus had a shoulder height of about 2 meters and thus reached the size of a modern moose , but was significantly lighter and longer-legged. The antlers, which only the males wore, exceeded the size of the antlers of all deer today. It reached a wingspan of 3.60 meters and was one of the largest forehead weapons that the cloven-hoofed animals brought forth. Like all deer today, he was able to shed and rebuild the huge antlers every year. Contrary to other reports, Megaloceros giganteus was not the largest deer of all time. Today's moose, especially the large forms in Alaska, sometimes significantly exceed them in body mass. Extinct giant forms such as the broad-fronted elk ( Alces latifrons ) had much more body mass with up to 1400 kg.
Since Megaloceros giganteus can be found on numerous cave drawings by Ice Age humans, it can be assumed that it played a role in the hunt of early humans in Europe. In these pictures he is shown with a dark brown back and a whitish chest, so that one can assume that these were the actual coat colors of this giant deer. On some of the drawings a triangular structure can be seen in the shoulder area. The skeleton of Megaloceros shows in the shoulder area, similar to the elk, an individually varying degree of elongation of the vertebral processes, which in all probability served as an additional attachment point for muscles to carry the heavy antlers. A similar shoulder hump formed by vertebral extensions can also be found in the extinct broad-fronted elk, which also had extremely heavy antlers. Cave drawings show this area particularly well, which is why it was possibly enlarged by additional fat or muscle mass. In contrast to the fat hump of dromedaries or the shoulder hump of the zebu , which consists only of soft tissue, it was supported by bones.
Not all species of Megaloceros were very large; Similar to other genera of the Pleistocene, island dwarf forms have developed. Megaloceros cazioti from Corsica and Sardinia , which emerged from Megaloceros verticornis , only reached about one meter shoulder height and had greatly reduced antlers. Megaloceros cretensis from Crete was even smaller and measured only 60 cm at the shoulder. With its short antlers, it was more reminiscent of a muntjac .
For new genetic analyzes of the closest living relatives of likely Megaloceros of fallow and not, as long suspected, the red deer to be. The giant deer is not closely related to the elk, although one might suspect this based on the shovel antlers.
die out
It used to be assumed that the giant deer died out as a result of reforestation at the end of the last ice age, as it got caught with its large antlers while fleeing between the trees. This idea is somewhat naive, however, since there are still open steppe areas in Eurasia today. The theory that the animals only became extinct because their antlers grew too big is also absurd. The possibility is often discussed that the giant deer at the end of the Pleistocene, when the vegetation changed, no longer had sufficient nutrients to build up the antlers. As A. J. Stuart (2004) from the Institute of Biology at University College London showed, the giant deer in western Siberia has survived 3000 years longer than previously assumed. For him and his team, this is proof that the reasons for the extinction of the individual animal species are more complex. So there is little evidence that the antlers became smaller at the end of the Pleistocene. The extinction of the giant deer is most likely related to a combination of human stalking and changes in vegetation. The giant deer was a highly successful species for hundreds of thousands of years and died out along with several other animal species in the course of the Quaternary extinction wave .
literature
- Paul S. Martin , Richard G. Klein (Eds.): Quaternary Extinctions. A Prehistoric Revolution. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson AZ 1984, ISBN 0-8165-1100-4 .
- Arno Hermann Müller : Textbook of paleozoology. Volume 3: Vertebrates. Part 3: Mammalia. 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Fischer, Jena 1989, ISBN 3-334-00223-3 .
- Wighart von Koenigswald: Living Ice Age. Climate and fauna in transition. Theiss, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-8062-1734-3 .
Individual evidence
- ^ A b A. J. Stuart, PA Kosintsev, TFG Higham , AM Lister: Pleistocene to Holocene extinction dynamics in giant deer and woolly mammoth. In: Nature. 431, 2004, pp. 684-689. doi: 10.1038 / nature02890
- ↑ Sandrine Hughes, Thomas J. Hayden, Christophe J. Douady, Christelle Tougard, Mietje Germonpré, Anthony Stuart, Lyudmila Lbova, Ruth F. Carden, Catherine Hänni, Ludovic Say: Molecular phylogeny of the extinct giant deer, Megaloceros giganteus. In: Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 40, 2006, p. 285, doi: 10.1016 / j.ympev.2006.02.004 .
