Irish Elk
by Jaclyn A.
Many people are misled by the Irish elk name. It is not Irish, and it is not an elk. It is basically a big deer. The reason why it is called the Irish elk is because the most of the best fossils were found in Ireland. It’s 2 meters at the shoulders, and had 3.6 meter long antlers. The Irish elk’s fur is thick. An interesting fact is that a lot of males died of malnutrition because they would fight with other males for a female. Sometimes, they would loose their antlers during this time. Therefore, every year, their antlers would grow back. Another interesting fact is that because of these antlers, the Irish elk would get caught in bushes and eventually the antlers became too heavy to carry.
The first characteristic to have evolved was a backbone and braincase. This group of animals was called vertebrates. The backbone helps the muscles move better and the braincase protects the brain. Animals kept that characteristic, but most kept evolving. Next came the gnathostomes. These animals had jaws. This helped the animals chew better. Soon after came tetrapods. This means they had four limbs. Because of these four limbs, many actions have evolved such as running, jumping, swimming, flying, and more. Getting closer to my animal, next came amniotes. This helped the animals because now they could lay there eggs on land and not have to worry about them getting dried up. Therefore, if an animal ate another animal’s eggs, the animal wouldn’t have to worry about the eggs if they could get out of the water and lay them on land. If the predator could get out of water, well that would be a different story. Another trait evolved for my animal. They were synapsids. The synapsids were animals with animals with a hole behind the eye socket. The lower jaw muscle would attach to the skull through this. After that came the mammals. These were animals with 3 middle ear bones. They heard sound vibrations for hearing. Another trait that evolved was the placenta. This is when the mother is connected to the embryo so therefore, the embryo is inside her belly so she could have live birth. Finally, the Irish elk evolved hooves. The name of these animals was ungulates. The hooves helped support the animal when it moved. The Irish elk is one of the more advanced animals, so it is more closely related to our modern day animals then most other animals on our cladogram.
All the animals on the cladogram are related to each other, but some are more closely related than others. In my case, the Irish elk is more closely related to the hylochoerus meinertzhageni (water pig). The most advanced trait the water pig and the Irish elk share are hooves. The water pig is more closely related to the Irish Elk than the horse is because the Irish elk and water pig have a special kind of hoof. It looks like they have two toes, or like the hoof is split in half. It is still made out of the same material of a horse’s hoof. The major difference between the two is that they are two different species. The Irish elk has huge antlers and the water pig is fairly small and has little tusks. I used the cladogram to find out the answer to which animal was most closely related to my animal by looking at the closest node where my animal descended from, which is the Ungulates. From there, I found the most advanced trait and saw which animal also branched off from that node. It was the water pig. I figured out the next question using the cladogram because the animals branched off and the reason why they branched off was because they were two different species. The most advanced trait is hooves. I found this out because it is the first node where the two animal’s lines both descend from.
Last updated April 7, 2007.