Giant Irish Elk: The Largest Deer To Ever Live | Extinct Animals Documentary | Real Wild
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.พ. 2025
- Known as the "Giant Deer", the Irish Elk was last seen nearly 11,000 years ago. This extinct series episode chronicles the habits and traits of the extinct deer species. It settled in Ireland where human hunters had not reached and antlers that reach 12ft from tip to tip. Why did this giant deer endure catastrophic extinction?
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OMG I've been looking for this series for years, please upload more
I just want to take a moment and give serious props to the CGI department who produced not just ancient deer pooping but also mating. Good on you mates.
I mean, if it can't eat, excrete, and reproduce, its not alive, at best it's a virus. Don't blame me, that's just science ;)
Excellent. Very excellent. Thank You. I have had fantasies since I was a kid of going back in a time machine & seeing magnificent animals like this. Computer images are probably as close as I will succeed. Thanks again
Everything was bigger then, including predators. This Elk stood almost 7ft high at the shoulder. Must have been 8 or 9 feet with head up and antlers grown in. What a sight to behold.
Elk are huge animals even today. On a visit to the Grand Canyon, they had elk and bison at the info ranch & the size of the animals were absolutely shocking to me. Unless we have seen them in person, we usually see bison & elk from an aerial view on a tv show and they look much smaller. I didn't like that these huge animals were in a confined section. (I do not like zoos even if they provide an opportunity for people to see wild animals.) ELK & bison also probably clock in thousands of miles a year roaming the wilderness for food, mating, rearing calfs, and to avoid predators & severe weather.
We have them here. We call them moose
Humans were also bigger.
Nonsense. The biggest animal to ever live, the blue whale, is still extant today.
I know that there’re serious moral and scientific questions about “recreation” of extinct animals; still, I’m looking forward to the de-extinction of this magnificent creature (among others…)
You meant cloning
It would be like a childhood fantasy movie. It would be better than seeing a unicorn.
I hope this is one of the animals we do bring back.
Imagine what the wealthy elite would pay to hunt these creatures if
@@ronfroehlich4697 Yeah. You know it. It was probably rich cavemen that drove them into extinction the first time. 🤣😜
Man I don’t think that dude even knew those antlers were there. I’ve seen a bull pick the back of a car up with his head and neck. No hesitation he just picked the back up and flipped it sideways about five feet. Hydraulic like. These beast are super powerful
The size of those antlers! Respect!
Would love to see one of these.
There is a pair of those in the Arizona State fairgrounds AG building. They are 14' tip to tip. They are so old that they are bolted to a steel framework as they will not hold their own weight. The skull is still in the middle and attached. I could never imagine an animal so large to wear these.
They went extinct right around the Younger Dryas event. That event was likely around the same latitude as Ireland too. I suspect a connection
This is a nice documentary. The video title says the giant Irish Elk is the largest deer to ever live, however it is not said in the documentary which is right. The giant Irish Elk certainly had the largest antlers of any deer while the largest species of deer that ever lived was Cervalces latifrons.
Yup. I just mentioned that too. Just noticed your comment. In fact, the Alaskan and Northern Canadian Moose is larger than the Irish Elk too. Making a present day survivor being as tall and heavy as the ancient elk species.
@@Tigershark-qy2gq The size of C.latifrons is quite large for deer standards, weighing as much as an American bison.
That has never been proven
Now the Megaloceros would be an amazing animal to bring back from extinction!
Why focus on megaloceros when its antlers were smaller than the Irish elk?
Range was across Europe and Asia. If talk is about extinction we need to consider the entire range
Thanks to cave art, we actually now know what the markings of the Giant Deer were. They weren't actually a solid colour as shown in this episode, but had very distinct and unique markings. The TH-cam channel EDGE Science actually did a video about it a year ago.
Actually, the Irish Deer (Megaloceros giganteus) was not the largest deer that ever lived, the largest deer that ever lived was actually the Broad-Fronted Deer (Cervalces latifrons).
One of the largest
The Broad-Fronted Deer (Cervalces latifrons) was the largest deer that ever lived, while the Irish Deer (Megaloceros giganteus) is smaller.
@@indyreno2933 so did it come from broad land?
@@mentalasylumescapee6389 😂
Sorry, but also technically wrong. The largest deer of all time is a Moose species that is also extinct. Remember Moose are part of the deer family as well. So the largest of all time is the Broad Fronted Moose (Cervalces latifrons). It was taller, heavier and was a deer. In fact, the Alaskan and Canadian Moose are bigger than both Megaloceros giganteus, and the Broad Fronted Deer. Making a living deer species the second largest deer of all time.
When I was a kid, our car hit a moose in the fog. It got up, tore the hood off the car with one swipe of it's antlers. Then rammed the side, making the door protrude slightly. The second hit the door came off. Then it lifted the car off the ground through the door jam with it's antlers and my family of 6 in the car escaped out the other side. The moose hammered that Toyota for 4 more minutes. The car was a total loss, we were safe, the Moose looked unharmed. They are unreal!
There was no mention of large predators of these giant deer, as in the large antlers being useful defense against said, possible, large predators.
I bet they messed some predators right up.
Well for elk and moose in North America the only predators are bears and wolves, and both did live across Northern Europe so I would assume a large wolf and bear
@@colbyzur4642 As far as North America, I believe there was a large, American Lion, around that time. In Europe, there was the Cave Lion, which was pretty large and I believe was around until about 15,000 years ago. I could be wrong on the times, though. I am also wondering if the Irish Elk was very close to the same as the European Megaceros. Both had very large antlers.
Great point, like other than in fighting and humans, what other animals hunted them? dire wolves and sabre tooths for two likely examples.
Bro… sabertooth tigers for sure, a pack of dire wolves maybe. I’m sure there’s more too
But we could only ever recreate 50% of an original animal, because we here and now can never obtain and clone mate a male and female, just one or the other.
"And your momma" > 11:03 😂
A very interesting video on the extinct Irish Elk. Truly the size of the Antlers on the Stags was impressive. 💪👃✨
I don't get it. The temperature dropped 7 or 8 degrees, and that favored the smaller-sized deers? I thought the cold temperature should favor larger animals, as they could retain body heat more efficiently. Polar bears are largest bears, Siberian (Amur) tigers are the largest in the 9 subtypes of tigers, etc.
Less food.
This animal is the closest thing to a mythical creature
It would be so cool.If the Irish elk was still alive!
humans would hunt the sh*t out of them until they're all dead
Send them to Vietnam!
@@chrisx5127 why?
Wow,! wish this animal was still around, That would be something to see!
And could you imagine how good that beast would taste mm mm
Wonderfulll Impozant!!!!!.........❤❤.......
Those are the elks used by elves on battle in the Hobbit (battle of five armies).
In princess mononke too
Yup. They did a great job of it too. They looked real.
Very dark in the museum. Hard to see. Glad the did animation of these in Lord of the Rings Movie.
Don't even mention that travesty. 🤮
That 1000-year cold snap sounds alot like the Younger Dryas.
It was the younger dryas, I’m glad someone else knows
I think the Y.D. is how the story of the so called "flood" came from. It lines up to around the same time period
Oh yeah, my new animation job is going great! Really interesting projects. This week I worked on animating some Irish elk. Yeah. Oh, what were the elk doing in the animation? Ermmmm.....
Thanks!👍
With more oxygen in the atmosphere the irish Elk probably flourished, when the atmosphere changed and there weren't enough oxygen as the world once had, this became a death sentence for the Irish Elk and many other large species of animals, on land and in the seas.
Imagine Boone & Crockett for these guys!
Oh, I humbly suggest ticks may have played a part in their disappearance. If ticks and global warming are affecting moose today, (moose who in Norway are called elg (moose), then global warming at the end of the Pleistocene could very well have affected these giant deer, too.
Now that the crater for the comet that struck 11,000 years ago, can we consider that as the primary cause. Hancock and Carlson were laughed at. Until they weren't
Looks tasty af ❤ whats a backstrap weigh?
The extinction of the Irish Deer (Megaloceros giganteus), Broad- Fronted Deer (Cervalces latifrons) and (Cervalces scotti) prove that from an evolutionary standpoint bigger isn't always better. Large size is risky when it comes to survival of the "fittest".
So true I think of the large extinct hyper carnivores of Pleistocene North America.
Evolution acts at a particular time in a particular place. No trait - like large size - is 'better' in all environments. Therer have been miniature elephants and mammoths on islands. In that case in those places, smaller was better. Fittest means fit to the local environment, nothing more. There is no 'always' possible.
though it did have the largest set of furniture, the Cervalces latifrons or giant moose was far larger and even the extant alaska can get bigger.
Now that's one they need to bring back! That, Aurochs, Mammoth, Thylacine! For starters! But they can keep that short faced bear extinct!
Powerful animal
So they were about the same size as moose, but with larger horns.
What? I had never heard of this deer.
Oh deer… (sorry)
I'm Irish.They find them in the bogs
Megaloceros. Another magnificent creature lost to human overhunting.
If you look at the American moose (European elk), they are much more similar in body and antler structure.
I was wondering if someone noticed that
The fighting is the exact same as any of the deer family, look at how the moose fight, it's deadly brutal,why try to invent what already exists, any of the deer family fight this way, the only difference is their extraordinary gigantic size, everything else is exactly the same, however very good vidéo, tanks for sharing, wasn't aware of their existance .
Why don’t you get to think of a suggestion and creating a TH-cam Videos all about the Extinct Carnivorous Marsupials, Tasmanian Tigers (Thylacinus cynocephalus), also known as the Thylacines, or the Tasmanian Wolves on the next Real Wild coming up next?!⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️👍👍👍👍👍
The king of deer.
That dudes key ring was legendary status. Somewhere on there was a key to every door in existence including a couple black holes.
Another creature that has the sense that we just missed it, time wise.
I wonder too if the calcium found in the grass at the time was truly enough to replace the calcium used in the antlers. Would they not be chewing on the sheds? Were their bones staying strong during such regrowth? I swear Ive heard of extant species of deer using the calcium in their skeleton to make their antlers when the mineral was hard to find. Is there any idea of what predated on these elk, besides early humans?
I wonder if your stupid surface level theories are pointless...beast system drone.
Majestic beast.
Por favor un video en español megusta ver sus documentales
You realize just sharing trait does not make one spices related to another
not me doing this in my free time and actually enjoying it ☺
If it's fighting off Smilodons it probably needed larger antlers.
Probably not considering that Smilodon lived in the Americas😅. What's more likely is that Cave Lions and other large carnivores from Ice Age Europe hunted Irish Elk.
The antlers look like they would be able to defend against wolves leopard and most predators
I thought such displays were for showing off, to the other boys and also as a come hither to the girls.
Generally speaking if a species has tusks and antlers on both sexes, they’re for protection or for foraging (tusks used for helping to bring down trees, or for mining salt in underground caves). The fancier the show (almost to the detriment of the individual) was for display and warning off other males - I’m bigger than you! Stand back!
Wow such groundbreaking research… I didn’t know antlers were for fighting! These people get paid for this??!?
Lighting in the museum or lab was really poor. Otherwise great video
Butt eye liked it tooo!
Me in far cry primal:mammoth and irish elk serial killer💀
I still remeber the sound of the clashing of these antlers every fall, echoing off the hills.
Love.
Imagine having the honor to be close to a animal like that. Animals are just wonders.
Imagine seeing one of these beauties in real life
The average hunter's knowledge > Andrew's research
Can you imagine the strength of them? It’s fighting would sound like thunder Storms!
5:50
As soon as I heard that question I answered with (pardon the American vulgarity),
"Sometimes, it's just what the bitches want."
And 7:18 provides the, much more elegant, but same answer 😆.
I wonder how the elk slept? Did they use their antlers as some sort of a shield to protect themselves while it slept? The antlers almost seem like a shield of some sort. Mother Earth doesn’t make mistakes, all of her creatures are made with purpose. Every inch is made with purpose.
Considering the moose is a member of the deer family, the Irish elk was hardly the largest deer to live.
The Irish elk was larger than a moose.
Why don’t you get to think of a suggestion and creating a TH-cam Videos all about the Extinct Carnivorous Marsupials, Tasmanian Tigers (Thylacinus cynocephalus), also known as the Thylacines, or the Tasmanian Wolves on the next Paleofactus coming up next?!⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️👍👍👍👍👍
Another suggestion would be the recently extinct Linneaus's Prairie Chicken (Tympanuchus cupido).
Guys. The Irish elk wasn’t just an Ireland or Europe. My great grandmother rode one in the late 1800s as a child. She said it was white. I found out recently that the Irish elk in North America became extinct by the end of the 1800s. In ontario
Meh it would have been fine carrying those huge palm of antlers on its head just look at the skeleton of the beast the neck muscles alone would have been massive but what incredible site to have witnessed seeing a wicked animal like that. Lol yum yum the steaks on it fuuuuuu
Ha, they found a few of those near my house in the Netherlands. They're just named giant elk. The Irish gave an antler to king Willem when he conquered Ireland we gave them orange to their flag they gave is some antlers we already got 😅 nice gesture though. But still think we shouldn't have lent a king to the British and share all we've got with them. I blame the French.
on the west coast of canada our roosevelt elk dont seem to care about humans. ive petted them, chased them off the road. rode my dirt bike with them. smacked their ass. they have large antlers and live in the heavy forest. lots of elk routes are near bodies of water.
It was actually closer to the Moose Family. We have the same species but slightly different in the fossil records of the American West.
Thank you for only showing their bones in dark rooms so we can’t really see exactly what they look like. 🤣
Photo sensitivity can cause exterior degredation
I suppose that antlers must be used to antle, but you neglected to tell me what antling is.
Also, you explain why the elk died out at the end of the ice age, but didn't consider whether the climate change might have made the island more amenable to leprechauns who might have cast spells.
They're always after me Lucky Charms!
They would also gig with their antlers to get at the sweet high nutrition of the roots of plants
Early Irish hunters were told it had whiskey inside.
I'm going to start working on my antlers.
Differing deer, yet the same 'kind', were brought onto the Ark. Ditto with other megafauna regarding the Flood, which many people credit the 'younger dryas' for.
All that education, all that research time, all that money wasted, when any moose hunter between Newfoundland and Alaska could have answered 99% of their questions for the cost of a beer at the local bar.
Seriously❤
Correct
The antlers would show the females how healthy the stag was. A big rack shows he'd been eating well, and will pass on healthy genes. That's part of what those huge racks are for. The other part, well , boys need to prove to each other who the toughest dude is. THWACK!
And protect their herds from predation?
The ice age didn't end during the younger dryas. We are still in an iceage. Currently we are in whats called the interglacial period called the Holocene.
I’ve seen a really small Irish elk skeleton at the Smithsonian Museum
Bigger Antlers means bigger muscles. :)
Ireland also had bears.
and loonies
Elk were very abundant at one time,east coast to the west coast.early settlers killed them off,now they call them rocky mountain elk,just like the plains buffalo 🐃 when rail roads went west,food for the crews ,men like buffalo bill,and men like him ,then after the railroads in ,hunters and other people can for sport hunts, I've seen pictures off huge piles of skulls. But the rocky mountain elk foundation is bringing the herds back in eastern states ..Pennsylvania as a county call elk county with a thriving herd,and a lottery permit hunt .i have seen a irish elk skeleton in a museum in Rochester new york, huge create. I went to Mongolia in 1989 and shot two .the call them moral stag,but nothing more than an elk,new Zealand ,has huge Red stag hunts ,these creatures are closest thing to a cousin of the irish elk,check out these places. As google any thing.and will pop up,modern technology, is fantastic. Happy hunting gentlemen.and good luck.
The Eastern Elk and the Miriam's Elk are now extinct. They are often replaced by Rocky Mountain Elk.
There’s huge elk populations in California.
@@donaldduck9493
The elk of California are Roosevelt elk. A different subspecies from the Rocky Mountain Elk
Not sure about the budget you guys had, but the CGI looks not very up-to-date. Looks like those old BBC dinosaur documentaries from the early 2000s.
Thranduil once rode this beast. 😂😂😂
Are they comparing to moose and elk in north america?
12 feet antlers??? How much they weigh?? They carry them all the time?? Now imagine the neck muscles they would have??crazyy
Actually they weren't carried all the time. They were shed every year and had to regrow again
So, they needed scientists to prove their antlers were used for fighting? I mean every other deer species use their antlers for that exact reason.
The title is already incorrect, as there are extinct moose species larger than the Irish elk. And as we all know, moose are deer
I think the Elk got caught up in the potato famine and caught the ships out to Ellis Island. The remaining fought in the Easter Rising
Why do they periodically stop the presentation and ask the audience questions? 😮
What happens to human poop after poop bugs finished using them? Can the dna of their food still survive?
It reminds me of our moose over here
Is it possible they were more like today's moose, rather than deer or elk?
It was such a a glorious animal it would jump into Irish Stew and Irishmens bellies
5:29
But the Irish elk didn't only live in Ireland. They lived across Europe.
Randall Carlson can tell you why they went extinct.
Im soryy call me childish but... did they really have to make that elk take a shit?
Everybody poops. 🤣
Imagine two fighting like bulls
Moose in North America mate the same way - the females follow a chosen male, who has huge palmate antlers he wags from side to side to impress females and intimidate rival males. Bull moose wag their antlers before fighting with other males. If his rack is impressive enough, a fight may be avoided when his rival backs off. Huge Alaskan bull moose currently have the world's largest antlers.
Irish elk (I know that Europeans call moose "elk") most closely resemble modern day moose to me, not fallow deer. Oh, and in North America, "elk" , or wapiti, are a different species with massive, deer-like antlers who rival moose in size but are clearly NOT moose.