In “The Hobbit”, Thranduil’s mount is a gigantic elk with an enormous pair of antlers.
If you’ve seen “The Hobbit”, many people are certainly impressed by the king of the Woodland Realm, Thranduil – an Elf king with a very aloof beauty.
Thranduil rides a gigantic elk with extremely large antlers. If you think this is a fictional creature, in reality, this animal is not imaginary; it is entirely real and once existed on our Earth. This luxurious mount is believed to be inspired by the image of the extinct Irish Elk (Megaloceros giganteus) that vanished about 7,700 years ago.
As early as the 17th century in Europe, people searched for the gigantic antlers of the Irish Elk in caves, with their size being significantly larger than any known deer species. Thanks to this unique feature, the German biologist Blumenbach classified them under the genus Megaloceros.
From a taxonomic perspective, the Irish Elk belongs to the deer family, is an Artiodactyla mammal, and is one of the largest members of the deer family.
The deer belongs to the Cervidae family within the order of Artiodactyla and is one of the largest members of the family. Although called an elk, research has shown that they are more closely related to modern deer than to true elk.
This species was once widely distributed across northern Eurasia from Europe to China and was one of the most common species in the late Pleistocene.
The Irish Elk appeared around 800,000 years ago, with the last of its kind becoming extinct at the beginning of the Holocene approximately 7,700 years ago.
This is the largest elk species that ever existed on Earth, weighing hundreds of kilograms, standing over 2 meters tall, and with antlers nearly 4 meters wide. Although called the Irish Elk, studies show they did not just live in Ireland and are more closely related to deer than elk. Nevertheless, the name of this species is associated with Ireland because the finest and most complete fossil remains were primarily found in the bogs of Ireland.
Ireland is located in the Atlantic Ocean and the number of deer species living here today is not particularly numerous. In the 17th century, gigantic antlers and other fossil remains of this elk were found in lakebed sediments and peat bogs in Ireland.
When biologists saw the gigantic skeletons of the Irish Elk, some thought they were closely related to reindeer found in Europe, while others thought they were more closely related to deer found in North America.
Initially, they also did not think that this was an extinct species; rather, they believed that this animal was still hiding in some corner of the Earth that humans had not yet discovered.
But the French naturalist and zoologist Cuvier refuted all these views, as through studying their bones, he affirmed that this was a species closely related to modern deer and that they were a completely extinct species.
However, due to the initial discovery showing that their bones closely resembled those of modern elk, and Ireland being the first place in the world to discover this animal, they were named the Irish elk or Irish giant deer, but their official scientific name is Megaloceros giganteus. The Irish Elk is the most famous prehistoric animal in Ireland and one of the symbols of this country.
The Irish Elk is an animal with a massive body and very harmonious body proportions. Its most distinctive feature is the gigantic antlers on its head, which can reach a maximum width of 4 meters and weigh 45 kg.
In fact, not all individuals of this species possessed such magnificent antlers; the antlers of males often resembled a tree trunk with long sharp branches, growing symmetrically.
The body length of the Irish Elk could reach from 2.5 to 3 meters, with a shoulder height of 2.1 meters; if including the antlers, they could reach up to 3 meters. The average weight of males is around 550 to 600 kg, with some exceptional individuals weighing over 700 kg.
With such size and weight, they are not the largest species in the deer family ever known to humans. The elk in North America today is even larger than them, standing over 2 meters tall at the shoulder and weighing nearly 1,000 kg. However, it is undeniable that the Irish Elk had the largest antlers in the deer family.
The elk living in North America today is slightly larger than the Irish elk.
Initially, there were many speculations that the extinction of the Irish Elk coincided with the extinction of large mammals such as mammoths and saber-toothed tigers. The main cause of this extinction event was thought to be human hunting. However, recent studies have confirmed that the extinction of this species was not related to humans.
When the last ice age of the Pleistocene ended, the Earth’s temperature began to rise, and significant changes occurred in the natural environment of northern Eurasia, with grasslands being replaced by forests.
Changes in the environment exerted significant pressure on the survival of this species; their habitat shrank, and the availability of food gradually decreased. To develop their gigantic antlers, these animals needed to extract a lot of calcium and phosphorus from their food, and when the food supply was insufficient, they would gradually develop osteoporosis.
Another feature of climate change was the renewal of the four seasons. The long summers were shortened. Thus, the young Irish Elks born had too little time to grow and could not survive the winter.
In this way, the disappearance of the Irish Elk was primarily caused by climate change rather than human activity. They had reached a dead end in their evolution and could not adapt to the changes in their environment.