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The fishermen came across an old skull with massive woods while fishing in Northern Ireland. The almost intact fossil belonged to the Irish elk, which has been extinct for more than 10,000 years. ( Ardboe Gallery | Facebook )
A fishing couple from Northern Ireland came across a historic catch, pulling with its net an old Irish Elk skull with its massive timber still attached.
Irish elk, also known as big moose or giant elk, has been extinct for more than 10,000 years. The name of the species is actually a misnomer, as the animals were found beyond Ireland and were in fact deer. One sure thing about them, though, is their massive size.
Old giant skull taken in Northern Ireland
Raymond McElroy and his assistant Charlie Coyle were fishing in an area of Lough Neagh known as Thorns when something got stuck in their fishing net. It looked like black oak, but it turned out to be a very important discovery.
When McElroy pulled the object into the boat, he saw that it was a skull with antlers. The fossil, which was acquired from part of the lake less than 20 feet deep and half a mile from the shore, was almost entirely intact. It was later determined that the skull, which was about 6 feet in diameter, belonged to Megaloceros giganteus or Irish elk.
Fossils of Irisk Elk
Irish elk have been extinct for over 10,000 years and are among the largest deer species on Earth. In addition to Ireland, animals also lived in Europe, North Africa and North Asia.
In recent years, Lough Neagh has turned out to be a great place to find Irish Elk fossils. In 1987, fisherman Felix Conlon found a set of woods attached to an Irish elk skull, and in 2014, another fisherman, Martin Kelly, discovered a lower jaw of Irish elk estimated at least 14,000 years old.
McElroy found the skull with woods in the same area where Kelly made his discovery, suggesting that the bones belonged to the same animal.
The recently discovered Irish Elk fossil should help experts better understand the massive animals, as well as the environment of ancient Europe. This is because Irish moose have been threatened with extinction due to environmental changes, when the grasslands where the animals lived were replaced by dense forests thousands of years ago.
However, while local authorities were deciding where the skull of Irish elks with massive woods would be placed, McElroy stored the fossil in his garage to keep it.
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