A yoke of lucky Northern Irish fishermen pulled in this skull with enormous antlers , measuring a whopping six feet in length . The over-the-top specimen belong to the extinct Great Elk , which has n’t been seen in Ireland for over 10,000 years , Belfast Live report .
Raymond McElroy and Charlie Coyle were fishing for pollan ( a whitefish native to Ireland ) in Lough Neagh , a freshwater lake in Northern Ireland . They were fishing in an country called the pricker when they stumbled upon the singular skull and antlers , which got caught in their sportfishing net , consort to Belfast Live .
“ It came up in the net on the side of the boat . I conceive it was a snatch of black oak to set about with , ” McElroy told Belfast Live . “ I was dismayed to begin with when I engender it over the side and saw the skull and antlers . It ’s somewhat good . ”
Yeah , pretty good . I ’d prefer a dissimilar adjective , which I wo n’t reproduce here , but those antlers are absolutely glorious , specially gift how much time they sit at the bottom of a lake . McElroy and Coyle made the find on September 5 .
The stiff , drag from a depth of 20 feet ( 6 meters ) , belonged to an extinct metal money known as the Great Elk ( Megaloceros giganteus ) , sometimes referred to as Irish Elk . The nigh entire skull , with its antlers still attached , measures 6 feet ( 1.8 meters ) across , accordingto LiveScience . The skull and antler have n’t been dated , but these majestic animal — the largest specie of cervid to have ever exist — disappeared from Ireland some 10,500 to 11,000 years ago . Great Elk also existed in Eurasia , the last of which disappeared from Siberia between 8,000 to 6,000 year ago .
Four year ago , a lower jaw os of a Great Elk was pulled from Lough Neagh in jolly much the precise same spot , leading McElroy to suspect it belong to the same cervid as this skull and antlers . The remains of these animals , most of which have been found in Ireland , are often unearthed in bog and lake .
Great Elks were truly awesome , measuring about 7 feet ( 2 meters ) tall , with males featuring antler up to 10 feet all-embracing . These antlers were potential the result of sexual selection , as they were not worthy for male - on - male armed combat . In terms of purpose , these antlers likely intimidated rivals and attracted female , according to theUniversity of California Museum of Paleontology . The massive antlersposed a considerable burdenfor Great Elk male ; sitting atop their head , the antler count in excessiveness of 60 to 90 pounds ( 28 to 40 kilo ) .
Speaking to Belfast Live , Ulster Museum scientist Mike Simms said environmental changes likely do this mintage to go extinct . By the end of the Pleistocene , Ireland ’s grassland , upon which the Great Elk had thrived for thousands of long time , had wrench to forest . This amount as a shock to the Great Elk , which could n’t adapt . A 2008studyby University of Florida researchers concluded that these environmental changes fall reproductive output of Great Elks by half .
The skull and antlers are currently being stored in McElroy ’s garage until local self-confidence figure out what to do with them . Hopefully they ’ll put the specimen on display at a local museum for all to see .
[ Belfast LiveviaLiveScience ]
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