Fisherman Snags Prehistoric Skull & Antler Fossil of 10,500-Year-Old Giant Elk in Irish Lake

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When Northern Irish men Raymond McElroy and Charlie Coyle went fishing in September 2018, they didn’t pull in a big fish but rather the skull and antlers of a prehistoric giant Irish elk. The fishermen had caught the 10,500-year-old fossil in the Lough Neagh, mistaking the giant antlers for tree branches.

“I thought at first it was a bit of black oak,” McElroy told the Belfast Telegraph. “I got it into the boat and saw that it wasn’t and I knew from the antlers it was no ordinary deer.”

The sheer size and weight of the antlers, which measured 2 meters (over 6.5 feet) across, were stunning. “I thought it was the devil himself,” Coyle said to the Irish Times. “I was going to throw it back in.” Thankfully, McElroy recognized the fossils as belonging to the same creature as a jawbone dragged up from the lake in 2014.

The two fishermen had set out in the early morning, around 4:30 a.m., with the hopes of catching some pollan, a fish that only lives in Irish lakes. Instead, they pulled up the massive mammal antlers.

When they finally pulled in the antlers and got back to shore, a picture of McElroy with the huge prize was taken and later posted to Facebook, where it garnered thousands of likes. The specimen’s scientific name is Megaloceros giganteus, reflecting its impressive size. According to PBS Eons, it’s believed that the low-oxygen environment of Ireland’s bogs accounts for the large number of well-preserved fossils found there.

The curator of the Ulster Museum, Dr. Mike Simms, told the Belfast Telegraph that the find was impressively intact. “It certainly looks to be the best preserved find of its kind in my 21 years working here,” the senior curator at the Natural Sciences section said. “It’s rare to see one with both antlers still attached. It’s a wonderful find.”

Simms underscored the importance of a change from grasslands to the dominance of trees in the species’s gradual vanishing from Ireland. “The species would have moved here at the end of the ice age, around 17,000 years ago, but they disappeared from Ireland around 10,500 years ago when forests started to appear,” he said.

Despite its common name, the creature didn’t only live in Ireland but in fact roamed all over Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Closer to red deer and fallow deer than today’s elks, the species truly qualified for the title of “megafauna.” The antlers of Megaloceros giganteus could reach 3.7 meters (12 feet) wide at their largest and weigh up to 45 kilograms (100 pounds), according to PBS.

The Megaloceros’s antlers weren’t only useful for clashing with other male elks. There is widespread evidence of humans using the antlers, either after they were shed or else hunted, for all kinds of purposes. An antler made into a kind of hammer was discovered at a site in Wulanmulun, China, and an antler carved into a dagger was also recovered from a peat bog in Russia, according to PBS.

It’s also probable that humans used the antlers for religious and ceremonial purposes, as prehistoric paintings of them have been found in caves in France and Spain. The giant Megaloceros also represents an important symbol of Northern Irish identity, appearing on the country’s coat of arms.