Harley Engle

The Fall of a Giant

             If you walk into the Irish Museum of Natural History, you will immediately be greeted by three complete skeletons of one of Ireland’s largest inhabitants. Megaloceros giganteus, also known as the Giant Irish Deer, last walked the earth about 10,000 years ago. It was an impressive and majestic creature. Fully grown, a male Giant Irish Deer could be 7 feet tall at its shoulders and have antlers that were 12 feet across. They were larger than the modern moose, but still maintained the elegant movements and shape of the whitetail deer we see at home. How did they get this big? The answer is actually quite simple. Even today, deer compete for mates by knocking heads and clashing their antlers together. The deer with the larger body and antlers is almost always going to come out on top. Over time, the bigger animals reproduce and create even bigger animals. Finally, we have the Giant Irish Deer that many zoologists know and love.

 M. giganteus would have been beautiful creatures that dominated their environment. Not many predators would be able to easily attack something of that size. So how did the Giant Irish Deer go extinct? There are many differing theories, but the most probable is that they became so large, and their antlers were so cumbersome, that they simply could not exist. The deer could not take in enough nutrients to support its heavy weight. Also, when predators did attack, the Giant Irish Deer was not fast enough to escape. The males could not run through the forest because their antler-span did not allow them to move between the narrow openings in the trees. There was no where they could hide, and so they were eliminated from the world.

             When given the task to relate this magnificent quadruped to Irish history, the connections were simple. Think of Megoloceros giganteus as the British Empire. Growing and growing without thinking of the consequences. It simply was not sustainable. Their huge size became their weakness, and their forces were spread too thin. This is like how the nutrients taken in by the deer could not be given to all parts of it, and so the whole creature struggled. The Irish rebels took advantage of the British being involved in other conflicts and rose up for freedom. If the British Empire had negotiated and let Ireland rule itself, then maybe it would have survived for longer. If the Giant Irish Deer did not care so much about being the largest and having the biggest antlers, it might have survived longer too. The Giant Irish Deer was beautiful and elegant, but it simply was not practical. In the end, evolution betrayed it. The biggest creatures and empires are not always sustainable.

Some images to show their incredible size and beautiful shape.

Also, the Giant Irish Deer was in the last Hobbit movie. Many people probably watched the movie not knowing that the animal actually existed at one point.