''Eucladoceros'' (

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

for "well-branched antler") or bush-antlered deer is an extinct

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

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 re ...

whose

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s have been discovered in Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. This genus was formally described by

Hugh Falconer Hugh Falconer MD FRS (29 February 1808 – 31 January 1865) was a Scottish geologist, botanist, palaeontologist, and paleoanthropologist. He studied the flora, fauna, and geology of India, Assam,Burma,and most of the Mediterranean islands a ...

in 1868.Falconer, H. (1868)
Notes on fossil species of ''Cervus'', including a description of a remarkable fossil antler of a large species of extinct ''Cervus'', ''C. (Eucladoceros) Sedgwickii''
in the collection of the Rev John Gunn, Irstead. In: C. Murchison (Ed.): ''Palaeontological Memoirs and Notes of Hugh Falconer, Vol. II. Mastodont, elephant, rhinoceros, ossiferous caves, primeval man and his contemporaries'': 471-480.

Description

''Eucladoceros'' was a large deer, reaching in body length and standing about tall at the shoulder, only slightly smaller than a modern

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 ma ...

. It had a spectacular set of

antler Antlers are extensions of an animal's skull found in members of the Cervidae (deer) family. Antlers are a single structure composed of bone, cartilage, fibrous tissue, skin, nerves, and blood vessels. They are generally found only on ...

s which split into twelve tines per pedicle, and were up to wide. The most distinctive feature of ''Eucladoceros'' was its comb-like antlers, especially in ''E. ctenoides''. ''E. dicranios'' is the most evolved species of the genus, with a dichotomous branching of each antler tine. ''Eucladoceros'' was the first deer genus to have highly evolved antlers; however its cranial shape and dental morphology remained primitive, as in ''

Rusa unicolor The sambar (''Rusa unicolor'') is a large deer native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia that is listed as a vulnerable species on the IUCN Red List since 2008. Populations have declined substantially due to severe hunting, local ins ...

''.

Distribution

The first find (''E. dicranios'') was in 1841 by Florentine naturalist Filippo Nesti, director of the "Museo di Storia Naturale di Firenze" ("Museum of Natural History of

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

"). The earliest species of ''Eucladoceros'' was described from the Early

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Pleistocene 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 ...

of Europe and China. The systematics of European forms is confused and up to twelve poorly defined species are reported. The majority of those species names are synonymous, and at present only two or three good species are recognized: ''E. dicranios'' from England, Italy and Azov Sea Area in South Russia; ''E. ctenoides'' from Greece, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and England; and ''E. teguliensis'' (a senior synonym of ''E. senezensis'') from France, the Netherlands, and Britain. The latter species is regarded by some authors as a subspecies of ''E. ctenoides'', since there are some finds (for instance, from Ceyssaguet, France) that show a transitional character between ''E. ctenoides'' and ''E. teguliensis''. Some poor remains of ''Eucladoceros'' are found also in Tajikistan, Pakistan, and India.

Species

* ''Eucladoceros boulei'' Marcellin Boule (1928), Age: Latest Pliocene - Early Pleistocene; Nihowan, China * ''Eucladoceros ctenoides'' (former name ''E. teguliensis'') F. Nesti (1841), Age: Early Pleistocene, Late Villafranchian; Locus typicus: Upper Valdarno, Tuscany, Italy * ''Eucladoceros dichotomus'' (Original citation: ''Cervus (Elaphurus) dichotomus'' Teilhard de Chardin & Piveteau; Early Pleistocene of Nohowan; most probably is not a ''Eucladoceros'' species) * ''Eucladoceros dicranios'' Filippo Nesti (1841), Age: Early Pleistocene, Late Villafranchian; Upper Valdarno, Tuscany, Italy. Note: the type species of the genus. * ''Eucladoceros proboulei'' (Dong Wey), Age: Early Pliocene; China * ''Eucladoceros senezensis'' Charles Depéret, 1910, Senèze (Haute-Loire), near

Brioude Brioude (; Auvergnat: ''Briude'') is a commune in the Haute-Loire department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in south-central France. It lies on the banks of the river Allier, a tributary of the Loire. History At Brioude, the ancient ''Bri ...

, France. Note: some authors regard it as a subspecies of ''E. ctenoides''. * ''Eucladoceros tetraceros'' Sir Wm. Boyd Dawkins (1878), Age: Early Pleistocene; Peyrolles, Haute-Loire, France. Note: a possible synonym of ''E. ctenoides''.

References

Literature

*Azzaroli, A. 1954. "Critical observations upon Siwalik deer". ''The Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London'', 165: 75-83, London. *Azzaroli, A. & Mazza, P. 1992. "The cervid genus ''Eucladoceros'' in the early Pleistocene of Tuscany". ''Palaeontographia Italica'', 79: 43-100; Pisa. *Croitor R. & Bonifay M.-F. 2001. "Étude préliminaire des cerfs du gisement Pleistocène inférieur de Ceyssaguet (Haute-Loire)". ''Paleo'', 13: 129-144. *Dong W. & Ye J. 1996. "Two new cervid species from the late Neogene of Yushe Basin, Shanxi Province, China". ''Vertebrata PalAsiatica'', 34 (2): 135-144. *Heintz E. 1970. "Les Cervides Villafranchiens de France et d’Espagne". ''Memoires du Museum national d’histoire naturelle''. Ser.C, Sc. De la Terre, 22 (1-2): 1-302, Paris. *Vos, J. De, Mol D. & Reumer J. W. F.1995. "Early pleistocene Cervidae (Mammalia, Artyodactyla) from the Oosterschelde (the Netherlands), with a revision of the cervid genus ''Eucladoceros'' Falconer", 1868. ''Deinsea'', 2: 95-121.

External links

A Pleistocene Bestiary

{{Taxonbar, from=Q134257 Cervinae Prehistoric deer Pliocene first appearances Pleistocene genus extinctions Cenozoic mammals of Asia Cenozoic mammals of Europe Prehistoric even-toed ungulate genera Fossil taxa described in 1868