Largest antlers ever

The largest antlers ever to have evolved belonged to the aptly named giant deer (Megaloceros giganteus), also known as the Irish elk on account of many fossil specimens having been found in Ireland, and the royal stag in some dated literature. Based upon fossil evidence of many highly complete skeletons and a few excellent cave paintings, this impressive species is believed to have stood up to 1.8–2.1 m (5 ft 11 in–6 ft 11 in) at the shoulder, and bore enormous palmated antlers in the male that could span up to 3.6 m (11 ft 9.7 in) from tip to tip, and weigh around 40 kg (88 lb).

The Latin name of this extinct deer literally translates as “giant antlers”.

The Irish elk constitutes one of the most iconic misnomers in palaeontology, being neither an elk nor exclusively endemic to Ireland, in fact widespread from northern Spain to Lake Baikal in southern Siberia between 420,000 and 7,700 years ago. Ancient DNA samples from its remains have confirmed that its closest relative was the modern-day fallow deer (traditionally, the elk refers to the moose in British English; but in North America it refers to the wapiti, or North American red deer).

Until recently, this huge species was believed to have died out by the end of the Pleistocene epoch, 11,700 years ago, but very early Holocene fossils have lately been revealed on the Isle of Man and in central Europe, confirming that small, scant populations survived the last Ice Age. A spectacular skeleton discovered in Kamyshlov, east of Yekaterinburg in western Siberia, was recently dated to be just 7,700 years old.

The Irish elk was not, however, the largest deer species ever. That title goes to the broad-fronted stag moose (Cervalces latifrons), which roamed across northern Eurasia from the UK to northern Siberia between the late Early and Middle Pleistocene, 1.5–0.21 million years ago. The upper foot bone alone, which is about 25% more massive than that of a modern moose (Alces alces, today's largest deer), supported an animal that could exceed 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) in shoulder height and weigh between 900 and 1,200 kg (1,980–2,645 lb). The slightly smaller antlers of the broad-fronted stag moose are thought to have reached a maximum breadth of 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) across, tip-to-tip.

This compares to the largest antler spread, or "rack", of any living species which was 1.99 m (6 ft 6½ in) from a moose killed near the Stewart River in Yukon, Canada, in October 1897 and now on display in the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois, USA.