''Cervalces scotti'', the elk moose or stag-moose, is an extinct species of large deer that lived in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

during the Late

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

epoch. It had palmate antlers that were more complex than those of a moose and a muzzle more closely resembling that of a typical

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...

. It is the only known North American member of the genus ''

Cervalces ''Cervalces'' is an extinct deer genus that lived during the Pliocene and Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, ...

''.

Description

It was as large as the moose, with an

elk The elk (''Cervus canadensis''), also known as the wapiti, is one of the largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. The common ...

-like head, long legs, and palmate antlers that were more complex and heavily branching than the moose. ''Cervalces scotti'' reached in length and a weight of . The stag-moose resided in North America during an era with other

megafauna In terrestrial zoology, the megafauna (from Greek μέγας ''megas'' "large" and New Latin ''fauna'' "animal life") comprises the large or giant animals of an area, habitat, or geological period, extinct and/or extant. The most common threshold ...

such as the

woolly mammoth The woolly mammoth (''Mammuthus primigenius'') is an extinct species of mammoth that lived during the Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with '' Mammuthus subp ...

ground sloth Ground sloths are a diverse group of extinct sloths in the mammalian superorder Xenarthra. The term is used to refer to all extinct sloths because of the large size of the earliest forms discovered, compared to existing tree sloths. The Caribbe ...

long horn bison ''Bison latifrons'', also known as the giant bison or long-horned bison, is an extinct species of bison that lived in North America during the Pleistocene epoch ranging from Alaska to Mexico. It was the largest and heaviest bovid ever to live ...

, and saber toothed cat."Cervalces Scotti." Maxilla & Mandible. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2014. . The species became extinct approximately 11,500 years ago, toward the end of the most recent

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...

, as part of a mass extinction of large North American mammals. The first evidence of ''Cervalces scotti'' found in modern times was discovered at

Big Bone Lick Big Bone Lick State Park is located at Big Bone in Boone County, Kentucky. The name of the park comes from the Pleistocene megafauna fossils found there. Mammoths are believed to have been drawn to this location by a salt lick deposited around t ...

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

William Clark William Clark (August 1, 1770 – September 1, 1838) was an American explorer, soldier, Indian agent, and territorial governor. A native of Virginia, he grew up in pre-statehood Kentucky before later settling in what became the state of Misso ...

, ''circa'' 1805. A more complete skeleton was found in 1885 by William Barryman Scott in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. Mummified remains have also been found. One of the most complete ''Cervalces'' skulls ever discovered was dredged from a pond in

Kendallville, Indiana Kendallville is a city in Wayne Township, Noble County, in the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 9,862 at the 2010 census. History Kendallville was laid out in 1849. The city was named for Amos Kendall, 8th United States Postmaster Gen ...

and dated to 13,500 BP.

Evolution

The ancestor of ''Cervalces scotti'' is believed to have evolved on the Eurasian continent. ''Cervalces scotti'' is believed to be related to ''

Cervalces latifrons ''Cervalces latifrons'', the broad-fronted moose, or the giant moose was a giant species of deer that inhabited the holarctic regions of Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene epoch. It is believed to be the largest species of deer that ever exi ...

'', another similar species that became extinct around the same time as ''Cervalces scotti''. It shared the spruce parkland ecosystem with other Pleistocene megafauna, such as the

caribou Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subspe ...

moose The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult mal ...

, the woodland musk-ox, and the giant beaver,Bower, Bruce. "America's Talk: The Great Divide." Science News 137.23 (1990): 360-362. JSTOR. Web in a range from southern

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

and from

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...

to New Jersey. As the

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...

s retreated, moose (which had crossed the

Bering land bridge Beringia is defined today as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada; on the north by 72 degrees north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south by the tip of ...

from Asia) may have populated the habitat of ''Cervalces scotti'' and caused its extinction by competition. Although there is no paleontological evidence that it was associated with humans, other theories for its extinction have been proposed. Notably, there is speculation that hunting by newly arrived humans caused the extinction of the ''Cervalces scotti'' and other large mammals. Additionally, some have proposed a sudden extinction by disease, brought by small mammals in association with humans. The oldest known fossil of ''Cervalces scotti'' was found in the bed of the Skunk River in Iowa, with the specimen dating back approximately 30,000 years ago. The area in which the fossil was found and the date implies that ''Cervalces scotti'' lived before a massive ice sheet covered the area in which it inhabited, which could also be a possible cause of its extinction. Since the stag-moose resided in a woodland habitat, climate change and loss of natural pastures also could have played a role in its extinction. ''Cervalces scotti'' probably lived in a narrow geographic range, characterized by a spruce-dominant mixed conifer and deciduous wet woodland which may have made it more vulnerable to extinction. Remains of ''Cervalces scotti'' found in modern-day Ohio have suggested that it and ''Homo sapiens'' could have possibly interacted. Fossils of both ''Cervalces scotti'' and other large extinct mammals in the area suggest that it have been a frequent target of early human hunters. Remains of the stag moose, along with Paleo Indian artifacts and the remains of the

flat-headed peccary ''Platygonus compressus'', the flat-headed peccary, is an extinct mammal species from the Tayassuidae family, that lived in North-America during the Pleistocene. It was first described in 1848 by John L. Leconte. Description The flat-heade ...

, giant short-faced bear, and the giant beaver were found in the

Sheriden Cave Sheridan Cave is a Paleo-Indian archaeological site from the late Ice age in Wyandot County, Ohio. Glacial deposits sealed off the cave more than 10,000 years ago. Sheriden Cave is a karst sinkhole on a dolomite ridge that crosses Hancock and Wy ...

Wyandot County, Ohio Wyandot County is a county located in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 21,900. Its county seat is Upper Sandusky. It was named for the Wyandot Indians, who lived here before and after ...

Palaeobiology

''Cervalces scotti'', like several other members of its genus, probably lived in marshes, swamps and bogs, as well as spruce-taiga floral communities. There were also surroundings ranging from tundra–mixed coniferous forests to deciduous woodlands. These sedges and willows may have not have been suitable food products, but they provide an imagery of the ecology of the stag-moose. The change in flora and fauna due to complete deglaciation probably also affected the living conditions of the stag-moose in states like Iowa and Wisconsin, where the stag-moose was found at more than 20 sites. None of these sites, however, has any evidence that the stag-moose interacted with humans, furthering evidence that the extinction of the stag-moose is not comparable to that of large herbivores that were greatly affected by hunting. The stag-moose reproduced more often than megaherbivores, and so the hypothesis is that the stag-moose's disappearance is linked to the emergence of the "true moose" (''

Alces alces The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult ma ...

''), instead. Another reason for extinction could be the competition of several herbivorous artiodactyls, like the Bison in the new grassland ecosystem which replaced the spruce forest environment. Long, Charles A. and Yahnke, Christopher J. "End of Pleistocene: elk-moose (''

'') and caribou ('' Rangifer'') in Wisconsin." Journal of Mammalogy 92.5 (2011): 1127–1133. Web.

References

External links

Stag Moose Image Gallery
{{Taxonbar, from=Q16882783 Cervalces Prehistoric deer Pleistocene even-toed ungulates Pleistocene extinctions Prehistoric mammals of North America Fossil taxa described in 1885