Eucladoceros

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Eucladoceros
Temporal range: Early Pliocene to Early Pleistocene
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Eucladoceros dicranios.JPG
Skull of Eucladoceros dicranios
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Cervidae
Subfamily: Cervinae
Genus:† Eucladoceros
Falconer, 1868
Type species
†Eucladoceros dicranios
(Nesti, 1841)
Other species
  • †E. bouleiBoule, 1928
  • †E. dichotomus
  • †E. senezensisDepéret, 1910
  • †E. ctenoidesNesti, 1841
  • †E. tetracerosDawkins, 1878
  • †E. probouleiDong et Ye, 1996
  • †E giuliiKahlke, 1997
  • †E. montenegrensisVan der Made and Dimitrijević, 2015
Synonyms

PolycladusPomel, 1854 [1]

Eucladoceros (Greek for "well-branched antler") is an extinct genus of large deer whose fossils have been discovered across Eurasia, from Europe to China, spanning from the Early Pliocene to the end of the Early Pleistocene. [2] The various species of the genus are noted for their unusual comb-like or branching antlers, though antler shape varied considerably between different species.

Contents

Description

Skull of Eucladoceros ctenoides (labelled under the synonymous name E. senezensis) Eucladoceros senezensis skull.JPG
Skull of Eucladoceros ctenoides (labelled under the synonymous name E.senezensis)

Species of Eucladoceros were large-sized deer. The European species E. dicranios and E. ctenoides are suggested to have had a body mass of 300 and 250 kilograms (660 and 550 lb), respectively [3] supplementary material while East Asian E. boulei is suggested to have reached body masses of 350 kilograms (770 lb). [2] Body size of European species increased over time. [4] E. giulii has been estimated to have had a body mass of 385 kilograms (849 lb) [5] and a shoulder height of 1.55 metres (5.1 ft) while E. senezensis has an estimated shoulder height of 1.7 metres (5.6 ft). [6] Species of Eucladoceros are noted for their branching antlers, with a large number of tines projecting from the front part of the main antler beam. [7] In many species like Eucladoceros ctenoides the antlers have a comb-like branching pattern, while those of the type species Eucladoceros dicranios has a more complex dichotomous branching pattern. [4] The antlers of E. dicranios are proportionally large relative to body size, and are among the largest antlers known among deer. [8] The teeth of Eucladoceros species are similar in some aspects to those of the genus Cervus , but lack certain derived characters typical of the teeth of that genus. [7] The shape of the lesser trochanter near the top of the femur is considered an important character to distinguish Eucladoceros from Praemegaceros . [9]

Taxonomy and distribution

Eucladoceros was first created as a subgenus of Cervus (the genus that contains red deer, elk/wapiti, and sika deer, among others) in a posthumous publication by British palaeontologist Hugh Falconer in 1868, to contain the species Cervus (Eucladoceros) sedgwickii, described from remains found in Bacton, Norfolk, England. [10] It was later realised that this species is a junior synonym of Eucladoceros dicranios, named in 1841 by Florentine naturalist Filippo Nesti, director of the Museum of Natural History of Florence, based on remains from the Upper Valdarno region of Tuscany in northern Italy. [5] The oldest species of the genus is E. proboulei from the Early Pliocene (c. 5 Ma) of Shanxi, northern China, subsequently dispersing into Europe during the Late Pliocene, at least as early as 3.2-3 million years ago. [9] The last species of the genus went extinct at the end of the Early Pleistocene. [9]

The systematics of the genus is somewhat confused. Two species are generally recognised in northern China, E. proboulei and E. boulei and three generally recognised species in Europe, E. ctenoides (which has several recognised synonyms that are sometimes treated as subspecies, including E. senezensis, E. darestei, E. falconeri, E. tegulensis, and possibly E. tetraceros [5] ) E. dicranios, and E. tetraceros, with E. giulii and E. montenegrensis are also assigned to the genus by some authors. [9] Some poor remains with affinities to Eucladoceros are found also in Tajikistan and the Pinjor Formation of the Indian subcontinent. [9]

Eucladoceros is widely agreed to a be member of the tribe Cervini, though its placement within this group has been debated. A 2017 study analysing the bony labyrinth suggested that Eucladoceros was most closely related to the living genera Rusa (sambar) and Cervus. [11] Some authors have proposed a close relationship to the extinct "giant deer" genus Praemegaceros . [12]

Species

Ecology

Life restoration Evolution in the past BHL20676429.jpg
Life restoration

Analysis of the limbs of Eucladoceros suggest that they are most similar to living deer that occupy open habitats. [14] Dental microwear analysis of Eucladoceros ctenoides suggests that its diet was largely plastic and widely varied according to local conditions, [16] and it is suggested to have occupied open habitats. [14] Eucladoceros giulii is suggested to have been a strict browser that lived in closed forests based on isotopic analysis and tooth morphology of specimens from Spain. [14] At the Untermassfeld site in Germany Eucladoceros giulii is suggested to have been preyed upon by the "European jaguar" (Panthera gombaszogensis) and the "giant cheetah" (Acinonyx pardinensis). [17]

References

  1. ↑ Roman Croitor. Plio-Pleistocene Deer of Western Palearctic: Taxonomy, Systematics, Phylogeny.Ion Toderaș. Institute of Zoology of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova, 2018, 978-9975-66-609-1.ffhal-01737207f
  2. 1 2 Tong, Hao-Wen; Zhang, Bei (September 2019). "New fossils of Eucladoceros boulei (Artiodactyla, Mammalia) from Early Pleistocene Nihewan Beds, China" . Palaeoworld. 28 (3): 403–424. doi:10.1016/j.palwor.2019.05.003.
  3. 1 2 Croitor, Roman (2022-11-06). "Paleobiogeography of Crown Deer". Earth. 3 (4): 1138–1160. Bibcode:2022Earth...3.1138C. doi: 10.3390/earth3040066 . ISSN   2673-4834.
  4. 1 2 Pfeiffer-Deml, Thekla (2016). "Deer from the Pliocene site of Bad Deutsch-Altenburg 26 (Lower Austria, Leithagebirge): Conclusions based on skeletal morphology". Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien. Serie A für Mineralogie und Petrographie, Geologie und Paläontologie, Anthropologie und Prähistorie. 118: 133–173. ISSN   0255-0091. JSTOR   43923094.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Croitor, Roman (2018). Plio-Pleistocene deer of Western Palearctic : taxonomy, systematics, phylogeny. Institute of Zoology of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova. pp. 71, 77–82. ISBN   978-9975-66-609-1. OCLC   1057238213.
  6. ↑ Agustí, Jordi; Antón, Mauricio (2005). Mammoths, Sabertooths and Hominids – 65 million Years of Mammalian Evolution in Europe. Columbia University Press. p. 232.
  7. 1 2 van der Made, Jan; Dimitrijević, Vesna (December 2015). "Eucladoceros montenegrensis n. sp. and other Cervidae from the Lower Pleistocene of Trlica (Montenegro)" . Quaternary International. 389: 90–118. Bibcode:2015QuInt.389...90V. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2015.02.058.
  8. ↑ Tsuboi, Masahito; Kopperud, Bjørn Tore; Matschiner, Michael; Grabowski, Mark; Syrowatka, Christine; Pélabon, Christophe; Hansen, Thomas F. (March 2024). "Antler Allometry, the Irish Elk and Gould Revisited". Evolutionary Biology. 51 (1): 149–165. Bibcode:2024EvBio..51..149T. doi: 10.1007/s11692-023-09624-1 . hdl: 10852/114669 . ISSN   0071-3260.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 Gamarra, J., Salesa, M.J., Siliceo, G., Popescu, A., Codrea, A.V. (2024): First report of Eucladoceros (Cervidae, Mammalia) from the Late Pliocene site of Podari (MN 16a, SW Romania): description and ecomorphological implications of the femoral anatomy. North-Western Journal of Zoology 20 (2): e241902.
  10. ↑ 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.
  11. ↑ Mennecart, Bastien; DeMiguel, Daniel; Bibi, Faysal; Rössner, Gertrud E.; Métais, Grégoire; Neenan, James M.; Wang, Shiqi; Schulz, Georg; Müller, Bert; Costeur, Loïc (2017-10-13). "Bony labyrinth morphology clarifies the origin and evolution of deer". Scientific Reports. 7 (1): 13176. Bibcode:2017NatSR...713176M. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-12848-9. ISSN   2045-2322. PMC   5640792 . PMID   29030580.
  12. ↑ Croitor, Roman (July 2016). "Systematical position and paleoecology of the endemic deer Megaceroides algericus Lydekker, 1890 (Cervidae, Mammalia) from the late Pleistocene-early Holocene of North Africa". Geobios. 49 (4): 265–283. Bibcode:2016Geobi..49..265C. doi:10.1016/j.geobios.2016.05.002.
  13. ↑ H.D. Kahlke "Die Cerviden-Reste aus dem Untepleistozän von Untermassfeld" [the deer remains from the Early Pleistocene of Untermassfeld] R.D. Kahlke (Ed.), Das Pleistozän von Untermassfeld bei Meiningen (Thüringen), Dr Rudolf Habelt GMBH, Bonn (1997), pp. 181-275
  14. 1 2 3 4 Curran, Sabrina C. (January 2015). "Exploring Eucladoceros Ecomorphology Using Geometric Morphometrics". The Anatomical Record. 298 (1): 291–313. doi:10.1002/ar.23066. ISSN   1932-8486. PMID   25338504.
  15. ↑ van der Made, Jan; Dimitrijević, Vesna (December 2015). "Eucladoceros montenegrensis n. sp. and other Cervidae from the Lower Pleistocene of Trlica (Montenegro)". Quaternary International. 389: 90–118. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2015.02.058.
  16. ↑ Berlioz, Émilie; Kostopoulos, Dimitris S.; Blondel, Cécile; Merceron, Gildas (May 2018). "Feeding ecology of Eucladoceros ctenoides as a proxy to track regional environmental variations in Europe during the early Pleistocene". Comptes Rendus Palevol. 17 (4–5): 320–332. Bibcode:2018CRPal..17..320B. doi:10.1016/j.crpv.2017.07.002. hdl: 10902/29373 .
  17. ↑ Kahlke, Ralf-Dietrich; Gaudzinski, Sabine (August 2005). "The blessing of a great flood: differentiation of mortality patterns in the large mammal record of the Lower Pleistocene fluvial site of Untermassfeld (Germany) and its relevance for the interpretation of faunal assemblages from archaeological sites" . Journal of Archaeological Science . 32 (8): 1202–1222. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2005.03.004 . Retrieved 7 September 2025– via Elsevier Science Direct.

Literature

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