I'm a fantasy fan, and I'm fascinated by the Skavan Rat Man of the Medieval Warhammer, Tristed Durgoden of the Forgotten Nation, and the Dragon Knight in the Dragon Gun Chronicles.
But when it comes to fantasy movies, we can't help but say "The Lord of the Rings", and in the recent "Lord of the Rings" movie "Battle of the Five Armies", the elven king Thranduil on the battlefield rides a deer with huge horns, and the slender and gorgeous elf rides on the back of this majestic and healthy giant deer, which is simply the most perfect combination in nature. And the scene of this giant deer lowering its head and sweeping the half-orcs in front of me with its huge antlers also made me feel extremely shocked, how good it would be if I could have such a mount!
Look at my king's handsome mount | The Hobbit 3: Battle of the Five Armies
In this way, deer with huge horns became one of my "dream mounts" after arthropleura, dimetrodon, quetzalcoatlus and heavy-legged beasts.
However, is there really such a deer in the world?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="10" > 90 pounds of horns</h1>
10,000 years ago, deer with huge horns once gracefully roamed the steppes of Eurasia, but today this majestic shore is no longer seen, and people can only understand these giant deer through the skeleton, which is the giant horned deer (Megaloceros giganteus).
Hundreds of largehorn deer skeletons have been found in the swamps of Ireland, many of which are very well preserved, and some media refer to them as "Ireland's giant deer (Irish Elk)", elk refers to alces alces in Europe, and Cervus canadensis in the Americas, which is one of the most giant deer. But the bighorn deer is not a close relative of them, and is closer to the much shorter tiān deer (Dama dama).
Feel the mighty horns | Ardfern / Wikimedia Commons
When the fossil of the bighorn deer was first discovered, no one had ever seen a deer with such huge and beautiful antlers, and people at the time believed that its extinction was the will of the gods. In 1825, Archdeacon Maunsell proposed that this wonderful animal was exterminated by the Great Flood sent down by God. Although it sounds a bit funny now, it is already a fairly "reasonable" explanation in people's cognition at that time.
The biggest feature of the bighorn deer is the pair of huge antlers on the head, which is also the origin of its name. The huge horns of this pair are almost 4 meters wide and can weigh up to 45 kilograms. If I want to experience the feeling of a bighorn deer, I just need to put my wife on top of my head, but my neck with cervical spondylosis is expected to be directly broken... What's even more amazing is that every year this horn is shed and reborn, and it is made of bone. To know the entire bones of an ordinary man, the weight is only 8 kilograms!
The huge horns are a heavy "burden" | Jim, the Photographer / Wikimedia Commons
The antlers were so heavy that at first paleontologists thought that the bighorn deer could not bear the weight of the horns, and may even not be able to lift their heads, but could only walk around every day with their heads down. However, after the study of the body structure and attachment muscles of the bighorn deer, it was believed that the bighorn deer was strong enough and attached a large number of muscles to the shoulders and necks to support the weight of the giant horns. So how big is the bighorn deer? The male bighorn deer, with a body length of 2.5 meters, a shoulder height of 2 meters, and a weight of more than 700 kilograms, is also one of the largest deer members.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="10" > big horn is a luxury</h1>
So, the question is, why does the bighorn deer grow such an exaggerated horn? That has to start with the origin of the antlers of the deer family. Deer ancestors had no horns, and some of these species had developed canine teeth, similar to living orads (Hydropotes inermis), which were used to attack each other when fighting each other. Probably for eye protection, early deer evolved protrusions above the orbit, which could resist each other's fangs during fighting, and later evolved into bony horns.
The head of the red chamois (Muntiacus muntjak), its horns have a long bony horn base | Subramanya C K / wikimedia
Probably the earliest antlers, like the horns of giraffes, are coated with fur on the outside and do not fall off. And their descendants have evolved over countless generations, slowly getting longer and longer, growing bigger and bigger, longer and more fancy. Eventually, in the Pleistocene, the bighorn deer that had reached its pinnacle appeared.
The spectacular Big Horn | Wikimedia Commons
The horns of the bighorn deer caused a strong controversy among early biologists, and the focus of the dispute was the theory of evolution. Opponents of evolution argue that biological change is not the result of natural selection, but rather automatically and spontaneously moves in one direction, one path to black (called "orthology"). The horns of the bighorn deer grow up like this crazy, and finally they can't support it, causing them to become extinct. Evolutionists suggest that perhaps what is good for survival is not the larger horns, but the larger body size. But the law of biological development is that the parts grow at different rates (called "allometric growth"), and the angles grow faster than the bones of the body. So when the body expands, the horns expand disproportionately, creating huge horns.
Imaginary image of a bighorn deer being hunted, author Znedek Burian | guano / Flickr
Today we know the correctness of evolution, but modern science's explanation of the usefulness of bighorns is not "allometric growth." The big horns are ornate decorations used to attract the attention of the female deer, or to demonstrate to the male deer and hold a bluff big horn beauty pageant to establish their own status. The more huge and luxurious the ornaments, the more they can prove their strength. Most of the horned deer's horns are not pointing forward, but are spread out on both sides, so that it does not have to turn its head, others can see its horns, making its positive image particularly spectacular.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="10" > the disappearance of beautiful creatures</h1>
Once upon a time, large herds of largehorn deer roamed Eurasia, and their main habitat was the junction of woodland and grassland, mainly herbivorous and sometimes leafy. During the breeding season, the males show off their huge antlers to each other, while the doves willfully choose their own wishful grooms.
Explanations for the extinction of the giant horned deer are mixed. In areas further east of its distribution, the disappearance of the bighorn deer coincided with the expansion of forest areas caused by climate change. In today's Ireland and Russia, the time of extinction of the bighorn deer is similar to the time when humans arrived in these areas. Correlation does not equal causality, and we can only speculate that it may be climate change and humans, the best hunters in earth's history, who eventually made them disappear forever.
The bighorn deer frescoes in Lascaux | Wikimedia Commons
Current research suggests that the last bighorn deer may have disappeared around 8,000 years ago, when the dawn of human civilization has been ignited, and if the bighorn deer can hold on a little longer, it may be possible to see the description of this wonderful creature in the writings left by our ancestors, but history does not assume.
Some people think that the bighorn deer is an evolutionary loser, but it has not won or lost in the evolutionary history of organisms, because evolution has no "foresight" to speak of. Natural selection created by competition between the environment and other species is too unpredictable to change in a rapidly changing direction. And the creatures who explore and advance on the road of evolution have performed a wonderful repertoire for us, how can they be called "losers"?
The horn of the bighorn deer, taken from the annales des sciences naturelles | Wikimedia Commons
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