Y'all need to read Valerius Geist. The size or deer antlers is predictable depending on it's socialisation and mating habits. Antlers are a display of ability to forage well, passing on those good foraging genes to offspring who will bear calves and need to forage well while nursing calves during the all too short warm season. Those Irish elk were herd animals, count on it. That's why munjak have short antlers only used for protecting territory. VG if you read this a big thank you for writing the books.
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All I know is where I live in northern NJ and we are overrun with deer, I've see plenty of deer going antler to antler in a manner that looks way more serious than trying to impress a female who isn't even in sight. And my guess is that's how it's been throughout history for every animal, including humans.
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You would think that the gouges and scars on the antlers would answer the question about combat. That and the fact that all male Cervidae use them in fighting.
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I love this column -- worth the price of my NYT subscription. My son and I argue a lot of what animal has the biggest antlers. Now you've solved it.
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Who paid for this study? Sounds like a waste of money to answer a question that didn't need to be answered, unless you're drinking beer and debating such things...
@sfdphd this breakthrough changes everything! Prepare for the elk invasion.
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@sfdphd
Because knowledge of the past -- any knowledge, however inconsequential it might seem -- informs our present and our future? Just a guess.
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Maybe the Megaloceros giganteus used their antlers as protection from predators rather than deer-on-deer dominance? The antlers are so wide in the middle that they would have acted as shields to protect their bodies from attacks.
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A clear case of “sexual selection” at work. The lady elk clearly preferred the males with the big ones, conferring a mating advantage.....
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"It might have been more ritualized actions than really chaotic shows of dominance,” said Dr. Klinkhamer.
Oh, like the typical office staff meeting.
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Stephen Jay Gould wrote about this in Natural History magazine and his column on the "misnamed, mistreated and misunderstood Irish Elk" was reprinted in one of his best books "Ever Since Darwin."
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The physical possibility of fighting with those antlers doesn't prove that it actually happened.
Is anybody trolling the peat bogs (or wherever they lived) of Ireland for antlers showing damage consistent with combat with rival males?
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All I know is where I live in northern NJ and we are overrun with deer, I've see plenty of deer going antler to antler in a manner that looks way more serious than trying to impress a female who isn't even in sight. And my guess is that's how it's been throughout history for every animal, including humans.
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