Welcome to You Ask Andy

Bob Houstman, age 12, of Duluth, Minnesota for his question:

What was the Irish elk like:

Most likely our Neolithic ancestors hunted him in Ireland and other parts of Northern Europe. This was during one of the false warm spells that visited the temperate zones between the cruel ice ages. His fossil remains were found in modern times, preserved in the peat bogs of Ireland. Nobody knows when or why this huge and lordly animal became extinct. But the tragedy occurred many thousands of years ago, long before our industrial pollution threatened the survival of countless other species.

The magnificent Irish elk said goodbye to the world sometime during or between the ice ages of the past million years. We know more or less what he was like from his fossil remains and by studying similar deer that survived. to modern times. He was called an elk because his bones and his immense antlers proved him to be much larger than the usual deer of Europe. Scientists tell us that he was indeed a member of the true deer family Cervidae, to which the elk also belongs. But the long gone Irish elk was more closely related to the modern fallow deer.

His outstanding feature was his enormous crown of antlers. They were palmated, shaped like giant hands with wide spreading palms and prongs like curved fingers. Several fossil specimens proved that the antlers of the Irish elk spread up to 11 feet wide. They were at least three feet wider than the palmated antlers of our sturdy bull moose. The Irish elk had to be a big strong animal to support such head gear.

Herds of fallow deer are still wild in a few countries. But the most famous ones live sheltered, semi tame lives in English parks. They are those picture book, orange ¬brown deer dappled with white spots. The bucks stand about three feet at shoulder level and sprout very ornate palmated antlers, which are shed every season. In winter they lose their showy spots and wear darker coats.

The huge Irish elk left us no evidence about his clothing. But the chilly climate called for thick, shaggy coats. In his world, even the long gone relatives of the elephant and the rhino wore woolly coats. Most likely herds of Irish elk browsed on woodsy slopes and grazed in grassy valleys, somewhat like the favorite haunts of the fallow deer    but much colder. The woolly mammoths and rhinos, the thickly furred saber toothed tiger and several other warmly clothed animals also departed, somewhat mysteriously, during the ice ages.

Some people think that those enormous, unwieldy antlers made life impossible for the Irish elk. But scientists suspect that he became extinct for other reasons. During his long reign, he saw the wolves and other large carnivores grow bigger and stronger, faster and more cunning. Perhaps they hunted him to his doom    or maybe the weather wiped him out. Perhaps his herds were trapped in sheltered valleys, either when a new ice age came or when the old glaciers melted and turned the solid ground into soggy¬boggy swamps.

 

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