Here's my very late Christmas special! I hope you enjoy!

Screw the mammoth! Can we bring this stud back?

I've always liked deer. So giant deer are just freakishly awesome!

It could be that the artists were depicting the animal correctly, or showing the best places to strike the animal to kill it as a visual hunting aid for young hunters.

I have never wanted scientist to bring back an animal more than this absolutely beautiful

Ngl I would like to see this absolute beast cloned back instead of some others.

I love all the artwork so much, both ancient and modern. I loved this stuff so much as a kid, just being able to visualize these amazing creatures.

I'd really love to see a video on cave hyenas. Those buggers were EVERYWHERE in Pleistocene Eurasia, yet there are barely any videos on them :(

Excellent clip. Thanks for taking the time and trouble to make it.

Yay one of my favorite paleo creatures ! Thanks man SZ

I learned a ton of new stuff about a well known creature here. Awesome video!!

Wow, you are one of the few that truly understand this animal, for I have always thought that the black lines as you indicated were color breaks as you pointed out. Also, the black lines on the neck and head area are not black lines. But are a result of the rut as in most mature male deer, their neck swell, and these “black lines” are where the fur parts and at a distance give the appearance of a black line. Since the Irish Elk were related to the Fallow Deer and they in-turn are related to the Axis deer this extinct deer would have some features of these animal. I believe since they lived in a more open environment then most Ice Age deer (except Caribou/Reindeer) that their skin pattern would resemble a combination of a Caribou and Fallow deer. I have painted my version of this deer and would love to show it to you and get your opinion. I have hunted Caribou in the past and their coloration in the fall and winter are helpful in camouflaging these deer against there arctic environment. The only dark colored animals I came across where the musk oxen which are solid in color. But these animals are herd animals and form a defensive ring around the group to face predators, like perhaps the woolly mammoth and woolly rhino did. Deer tend to be more inclined to flee then stand and fight, that why it most important for their colorations to blend in with their environment especially in an open landscape. Since their large head gear would be easy for a hunter or predator to spot at a great distance putting all large males at a disadvantage and more subject to predation. I believe this contributed to their eventual extinction. I am an amateur fossil collector and I have many Irish elk fossils and original publications of this deer dating from the late 1880’s and 1920’s and have studied it for a very long time. Sending you a big Howdy from South Texas - Leo (my email address: umimak16@gmail.com)

Brilliant thanks helped me understand all about this amazing deer.

What magnificent & wonderful creatures. Can you just imagine a huge male with a pack of massive Dire Wolves chasing them through the snow covered tundra of late Pleistocene Europe..? Personally, I'm fascinated by the sheer speed of growth (we're talking nearly Wolverine level regeneration) required to produce those extraordinary, massive (40kg!) antlers, *annually* . There are several modern species of deer which have growth in the inches per week range, but Megaloceros tops them by nearly an order of magnitude! I would have thought that the accelerated metabolic rate necessary to achieve this level of growth to be cytotoxic (from waste products building up faster than they can be removed - not to mention waste heat), so I'm extremely curious to see if scientists can eventually reproduce a similar effect therapeutically (for example in bone repair) in humans. (NB: Based on research in animals like moose.)

Came here because of Durango: Wild Lands. Got me hooked on megalos now.

This was amazing! Thank you for teaching me more about one of my favorite prehistoric creatures, Megaloceros is freaking awesome!

Outstanding video! Well done Henry!

Great video Henry. Fascinating to learn about and to know about. It be fascinating to have them round today.

With one of the best christmas songs in the background as well!

Yes please do more videos like this I just found your Channel I enjoy it

Watched this in the height of summer...... Now I can't wait for Santa. I've always had a soft spot for the Irish elk. Can you do an episode on the ground sloth I think it's meglotheriam ? .

Haha awesome song in the background!!!!

This was good. Thanks

Fantastic video, love these videos on mega animals and humans

I bet it taste delicious.

What a colossal creature!

This video spends some time about the extinction of the species , and reasonably suggests that it was a cumulative effect of many causes, including humans. However, in discussing "the ice age", we should be clear that the entire Pleistocene was "the ice age" and glaciers advanced and retreated many times over a couple of million years, and so concurrently forestation would have changed many times during these changes in climate. It is with the introduction of modern humans in Eurasia that the last glaciation was different than the previous glaciations. Given this, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the introduction of modern humans was the critical change in the environment of the deer.

I would love more videos like this!!

what a cool subject to pick. I have to say megaloceros (clearly pronouced mega-lo-SAR-os) are a very cool species of deer, though of course they are defiantly the not the weirdest in antler structure. Its a shame that they did not live to present day. really good Christmas special, even if it was a month late.

Excellent

My favorite deer!

Great video!

I searched for this video because of the fossil in Animal Crossing New Horizons.

Fantastic video!

Holly cow batman that is one big deer, I assume it would be bigger than a full size adult moose. Great video

This makes me want to play Skyrim.

this was great

Funny, I always thought they looked more like giant caribou. It would be interesting if a DNA test could be done on them and find out.

Megaloceros giganteus is more correctly called an irish deer as it is not closely related to the elk (Cervus canadensis), it belongs to the tribe Megalocerotini, which also contains the currently living chitals (genus Axis), hog deer (genus Hyelaphus), sika deer (genus Ocellelaphus), and fallow deer (genus Dama).

Yeeeyyy! Fantastic video, it was interesting for me because I often see deer outside.

Love your realness!!!!!!

A very nice video! :)

Poachers and Trophy Hunters would be drooling by now

On, Dasher! On, Dancer! On, Prancer, and Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Dunder and Blixem! On Ruldolph, and last but certainly not least. On Megan the Megaloceros and journey to the east

The bands being color/shading breaks in the pelt seems far more likely

In Galizia, Spain, we have some prehistoric carvings on stone that depicts something like the Megaloceros and his collar-like pattern and 12 pointy ends on each antler (very big antlers). Everyone thought it has to do with a legend of a deer with a golden collar and a king of a tribe...but maybe it could be Megaloceros? We'll never know... Maybe if you search "ciervo de Castromaior" you can find it

I like playing Skyrim and there's Irish Elk in it it's cool at first I mistook them for moose since Irish Elk look like Moose and I wouldn't an Animated Kids Movie about Irish Elk too.

I hope someone can look for genetic material for this animal. The world was richer before we came along.

These need to be brought back to Yellowstone Park

cool

Megaloceros: *exists* Grand Megaloceros: welcome to the grand fuselage Newb megaloceros: *get noob meme*

You know that humans are about to revive these species

lol why does henry sound so much happier here

Wow I never even Knew this existed

If its closely related to red deer, then its closely related to wapiti as well, as the two can interbreed and hybridize, and the resulting hybrid is fully fertile.

I have a very large, atypical mule deer (Odocoileus hemionis) trophy which my husband shot in a certain area of Arizona, USA. He said all the deer in the area were large and many had larger antlers than the one he got. He said the reason for the large bucks with large antlers in this area was limestone which provided the calcium needed for antler growth. We also observed that many bucks in desert areas up and down the western U.S. had larger antlers than deer of the forest. There are limestone deposits and limestone caves in Europe and Asia. Was there a change in availability of limestone rich areas which could have affected the Irish elk population? Or might these deer have obtained their calcium from mollusks on the sea shore? If the sea shores were drastically changed with rapid melt of ice age ice, might this deer have lost a source of calcium? Whatever happened, it seems natural selection favoured smaller antlers.

They were actually carnivorous as well

Makes one wonder what the bulls sounded like in the rut.

Their size may indicate they could have been loners, if they only got together to mate, they could have been wiped out quickly.

So they were bigger than moose? That’s incredible

Megalocerovania

9:30 what Skrim mod is this?

Is there a study of the function of the large antlers?

have they ever found a set of fossilized antlers from one of these things?

Wait isn’t it pronounced Mega-low-ceros and not Mega-Loss-ceros? Have I been saying it wrong this whole time?

What are the chances of recovering DNA and reconstructing these animals?

Megaloceros seems to apear in Princess Mononoke

Cave people with speers sure did not kill many of them. I hunt deer and Elk and getting in range with a $2500 carbon fiber crossbow and killing one is a feat .

I was hoping this was a Skyrim mod showcase :(

🐐😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢

"...closest living relatives more than likely the extinct....??" smh -_-

That one depiction wasn’t a red deer it was a caribou

Why are so many Pleistocene animals associated with caves?

My favourite nz bird... Wrong video lol

So the pokemon sawabuck is not so unrealistic

Elk plus moose?

Dude your voice sounds so much different then, what happened?

My favorite extinct animal - superhorned deer. He was making boast of his horns in front of females if only the handicap conception is right.

Good, video, had to stop halfway through due to the clicking mouth noises.

Well wouldn’t that be an awesome rack to put on the wall

Sous français?

To bad they are extict

*Homo sapiens and Neanderthals Both are species of humans.

Christ makes life grand, dear 😁 Confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus. Believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead and you will be saved! (Romans 10:9)

that aint the way you hunt deer, watch a hunter hunt with bow and arrow or an atlatl, you got a bunch of stuff right but you make us hunters look like shit, still good video.,.

Not worth taming

I am an expert paleontologist. I got my degree from video games. I can confirm with my magical sexually attractive sciantific knowage that Megaloceros went extinct because only the males could gather anything, and only wood and thatch, and thus they starved to death.