Megaloceros is often confusingly called the Irish Elk, although it was found all across Europe, not just Ireland, and is technically a deer rather than an elk.

Meaning of scientific name
"giant antler"

Pronunciation of scientific name
meg-ah-LOSS-er-oss

Statistics
2.1m at the shoulder.

Physical description
Its huge antlers were once thought to have been its downfall because they grew so large that the animals could no longer lift their heads, or got them entangled between trees!

Distribution
Megaloceros fossils are found in large numbers in the peat bogs of Ireland. They are also seen in cave paintings, which show the colour patterns of the animals.

Habitat
The open woodland and forest edges in Europe.

Diet
They were herbivorous, eating grass and browsing vegetation from the edges of woodlands.

Behaviour
Many of the fossils found in Irish peat bogs are of males suffering from malnutrition after the rutting (mating) season, suggesting that they lived very like modern red deer today where males fight for the right to mate with a group of females every autumn.

Conservation status
Extinct.

History
They lived 400,000-9,500 years ago. The first artiodactyls (also called the 'even-toed ungulates') were present in the Eocene forests. Deer are probably descended from small animals like the chevrotains, which browse and eat fallen fruit in forests. Like chevrotains, deer use fermentation in their gut to digest plant material more efficiently - called rumination. As the forests began to open up in the Oligocene, ancestors of deer grew larger and browsed on the vegetation or grazed the new grass. In the Miocene, the first horned deer appeared, with the males having horns to fight rather than using their canine teeth (as the musk deer and a few others still do).

Closest relative
Fallow deer.