| Dama celiae Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
 | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Family: | Cervidae |
| Genus: | Dama |
| Species: | D. celiae |
| Binomial name | |
| Dama celiae van der Made et al., 2023 | |
Dama celiae is an extinct species of the genus Dama that inhabited the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Pleistocene.
Dama celiae is primarily known from antler material, as well as scapulas and metatarsals. Unlike modern fallow deer, Dama celiae has pointed antlers that lack palmation. It has a large, prominent brow (first and lowest) tine which curves upwards, and branches close to the base of the antler. The main beam of the antler lacks branching, and is directed backwards and outwards. Based on the size of the metatarsals D. celiae may have been larger than living fallow deer, and more comparable in size to Dama clactoniana . [1]
Dama celiae is known from two sites in Spain, Pedro Jaro I and Orcasitas, which date back to MIS 9 (~300,000 years ago). At these localities it co-occurs with animals like the straight-tusked elephant, aurochs, wild horse, European wild ass, bison, narrow-nosed rhinoceros, wild boar and cave lions, as well as another species of deer, Megaloceros matritensis. [1]
Remains likely of D. celiae have been found with cut marks, indicating that they were butchered and probably hunted by archaic humans, likely early Neanderthals who produced an Acheulean stone tool industry at the sites where D. celiae is found. [1]
A deer or true deer is a hoofed ruminant ungulate of the family Cervidae. Cervidae is divided into subfamilies Cervinae and Capreolinae. Male deer of almost all species, as well as female reindeer, grow and shed new antlers each year. These antlers are bony extensions of the skull and are often used for combat between males.
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 males, with the exception of reindeer/caribou. Antlers are shed and regrown each year and function primarily as objects of sexual attraction and as weapons.
The European fallow deer, also known as the common fallow deer or simply fallow deer, is a species of deer native to Eurasia. It is one of two living species of fallow deer alongside the Persian fallow deer. It is historically native to Turkey and possibly the Italian Peninsula, Balkan Peninsula, and the island of Rhodes near Anatolia. During the Pleistocene it inhabited much of Europe, and has been reintroduced to its prehistoric distribution by humans. It has also been introduced to other regions in the world.
Bilzingsleben is a former stone quarry in Thuringia, Germany, notable for its wealth of palaeolithic human fossils and artifacts.
The Irish elk, also called the giant deer or Irish deer, is an extinct species of deer in the genus Megaloceros and is one of the largest deer that ever lived. Its range extended across Eurasia during the Pleistocene, from Ireland to Lake Baikal in Siberia. The most recent remains of the species have been radiocarbon dated to about 7,700 years ago in western Russia. Its antlers, which can span 3.5 metres (11 ft) across are the largest known of any deer. It is not closely related to either living species called the elk, with it being widely agreed that its closest living relatives are fallow deer (Dama).
Megaloceros is an extinct genus of deer whose members lived throughout Eurasia from the Pleistocene to the early Holocene. The type and only undisputed member of the genus, Megaloceros giganteus, vernacularly known as the "Irish elk" or "giant deer", is also the best known. Fallow deer are thought to be their closest living relatives. Megaloceros has been suggested to be closely related to other genera of "giant deer", like the East Asian genus Sinomegaceros, and the European Praemegaceros.
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The Cervinae or the Old World deer, are a subfamily of deer. Alternatively, they are known as the plesiometacarpal deer, due to having lost the parts of the second and fifth metacarpal bones closest to the foot, distinct from the telemetacarpal deer of the Capreolinae.
Candiacervus is an extinct genus of deer native to Pleistocene Crete. Due to a lack of other herbivores, the genus underwent an adaptive radiation, filling niches occupied by other taxa on the mainland. Due to the small size of Crete, some species underwent insular dwarfism, the smallest species, C. ropalophorus, stood about 40 centimetres (16 in) at the shoulders when fully grown, while other species were relatively large and comparable in size to mainland deer species. Some species are noted for their peculiar, elongate club-shaped antlers, though other species have more normal antlers.
The Persian fallow deer is a deer species once native to all of the Middle East, but currently only living in Iran and Israel. It was reintroduced in Israel. It has been listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2008. After a captive breeding program, the population has rebounded from only a handful of deer in the 1960s to over a thousand individuals.
Fallow deer is the common name for species of deer in the genus Dama of subfamily Cervinae. There are two living species, the European fallow deer, native to Europe and Anatolia, and the Persian fallow deer, native to the Middle East. The European species has been widely introduced elsewhere.
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The Clacton Spear, or Clacton Spear Point, is the tip of a wooden spear discovered in Clacton-on-Sea in 1911. At approximately 400,000 years old, it is the oldest known worked wooden implement.
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Megaceroides algericus is an extinct species of deer known from the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene of North Africa. It is one of only two species of deer known to have been native to the African continent, alongside the Barbary stag, a subspecies of red deer. It is considered to be closely related to the giant deer species of Eurasia.
Haploidoceros is an extinct genus of deer that lived in Europe during the Pleistocene. It contains a single species, Haploidoceros mediterraneus. It had a distribution limited to southern France and the Iberian Peninsula.
Dama clactoniana is an extinct species of fallow deer. It lived during the Middle Pleistocene. It is widely agreed to be the Dama species most closely related and likely ancestral to the two living species of fallow deer and like them has palmate antlers.
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