![]() The remarkable life appearance of the Woolly rhino, November 2013 ![]() Tet Zoo picture of the day # 3 ( Elasmotherium), May 2007 On that note, here’s your reminder that I rely on your kind support at patreon, and that the more such support I receive, the more time and effort I can devote to Tet Zoo, and to my various book projects.įor previous Tet Zoo articles on Pleistocene megafauna, see. I have further articles of this sort in mind and hope to get them published here eventually. Members of our own species saw it in life and drew it, seemingly to a very high degree of accuracy. fourthly, we have direct eyewitness data on the life appearance of this animal. Again, no reason here to suspect that ‘Red deer look’.Īnd. Cursorial, open-country artiodactyls are often pale, with large white areas across the rump, legs and belly (examples include addax, some Arctic caribou and some argali). 1980), cursorial specialist, and in fact the most cursorial of all deer ( Geist 1999). giganteus was an open-country (Clutton-Brock et al. Thirdly, body size, limb proportions, antler size and habitat choice all indicate that M. If the ‘ Dama hypothesis’ is correct, there is again no reason to favour a ‘Red deer look’ for M. giganteus is phylogenetically closer to Dama deer than to Cervus, in which case we would predict that it descended from ancestors with prominent spotting, pale flank stripes, and dark markings on the tail, all features typical of modern Dama populations. Secondly, we have that data indicating that M. Why do I say this?įirstly, if we look at the colours and patterns present across cervine deer as a whole, we see quite a bit of variation and no strong and obvious reason why a ‘Red deer look’ should be favoured. giganteus is almost certainly very wrong. I will add here that we're generally talking about males of the species (since people mostly want to see depictions of specimens with those awesome antlers), though virtually all that I say below applies to females too.Īlas, this view of M. I’ve taken to calling this one the ‘Monarch of the Glen’ meme ( see my palaeoart meme talk here). In short, it’s usually made to look like a big, shaggy Red deer, and the tradition whereby this is done – it extends back to Zdenek Burian, Charles Knight and other founding palaeoartists – seems to me to be another of those palaeoart memes I’ve written about before. It’s very often depicted with a shaggy neck mane. giganteus has been illustrated a great many times in works on prehistoric life, and the vast majority of reconstructions show it a near-monotone dark brown or reddish-brown. giganteus look like when alive? I’ve surely mentioned this topic on several occasions over the years here I’m pretty sure I threatened to write about it after producing similar articles on the life appearance of the Woolly rhino and Ice Age horses. Here we come to the main reason for this article: what, exactly, did M. ![]() Oh, we also know that male mammals across many species are more inclined to take stupid risks, be reckless, and even display deliberate bravado more than their female counterparts. Maybe this reflects collecting bias (in that people were more inclined to extract the skulls and skeletons of big, prominently antlered males), but it also seems to be a valid biological signal: it has been argued that the calcium-hungry males were likely attracted to calcium-rich plants like willow at the edges of lakes and ponds, and were thus more prone to drowning, miring or falling through ice in such places than females ( Geist 1999). ![]() There does appear to be a preponderance of big, mature males. I’ve also seen and handled a reasonable number of the Irish bog specimens during time spent in Dublin. Like most European people who’ve been lucky enough to visit museums and other such institutions, I’ve seen Megaloceros specimens on a great many occasions – there are a many of them on display.
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