Local fishermen find skull and antlers of extinct Great Irish Elk

Irish fishermen have found antlers and a skull belonging to the now extinct great Irish elk.

Raymond McElroy and Charlie Coyle, both fishermen in County Tyrone in Northern Ireland, found the remains of a great Irish elk in their eel net in Lough Neagh’s Toome Bay, said Ardboe Heritage, a gallery tied to a local heritage group.

Irish local media said the remains were more than a 10,500 years old and although it’s called the great Irish elk, the species roamed all over Europe and  Russia. The last of the species died around 11,000 years ago, said a paper by the University of California Berkeley Museum of Paleontology.

They added the relic was technically a deer rather than an elk, but was the largest deer species ever recorded. It stood up to 2.1 metres at the shoulders with antlers spanning up to 3.65 metres.