Head to Head: the case for combative behaviour in Megaloceros giganteus
The largest antlers of any known deer species belonged to the extinct giant Megaloceros giganteus. It has been argued that their antlers were too large for use in fighting, instead being used only in ritualised displays to attract mates. Here we used finite element analysis (FEA) to test whether the...
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University of New England
2019
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Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.25952/5d830b0e4a734 https://rune.une.edu.au/web/handle/1959.11/27548 |
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ftdatacite:10.25952/5d830b0e4a734 2023-05-15T13:13:08+02:00 Head to Head: the case for combative behaviour in Megaloceros giganteus Klinkhamer, Ada J Woodley, Nicholas Neenan, James M Parr, William C H Clausen, Philip Sanchez-Villagra, Marcelo R Lister, Adrian Wroe, Stephen 2019 https://dx.doi.org/10.25952/5d830b0e4a734 https://rune.une.edu.au/web/handle/1959.11/27548 unknown University of New England Megloceros finite element analysis dataset Dataset 2019 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.25952/5d830b0e4a734 2021-11-05T12:55:41Z The largest antlers of any known deer species belonged to the extinct giant Megaloceros giganteus. It has been argued that their antlers were too large for use in fighting, instead being used only in ritualised displays to attract mates. Here we used finite element analysis (FEA) to test whether the antlers of M. giganteus could have withstood forces generated during fighting behaviour. We compared the mechanical performance of antlers in M. giganteus with three extant deer species: red deer (Cervus elaphus), fallow deer (Dama dama), and moose (Alces alces). Von Mises stress results suggest that M. giganteus was capable of withstanding some fighting loads, provided that their antlers interlocked proximally, and that it was best-adapted for withstanding loads from twisting rather than pushing actions, as were other deer with palmate antlers. We conclude that fighting in M. giganteus was likely more constrained and predictable than in extant deer. Dataset Alces alces DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) Giganteus ENVELOPE(62.500,62.500,-67.567,-67.567) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
op_collection_id |
ftdatacite |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Megloceros finite element analysis |
spellingShingle |
Megloceros finite element analysis Klinkhamer, Ada J Woodley, Nicholas Neenan, James M Parr, William C H Clausen, Philip Sanchez-Villagra, Marcelo R Lister, Adrian Wroe, Stephen Head to Head: the case for combative behaviour in Megaloceros giganteus |
topic_facet |
Megloceros finite element analysis |
description |
The largest antlers of any known deer species belonged to the extinct giant Megaloceros giganteus. It has been argued that their antlers were too large for use in fighting, instead being used only in ritualised displays to attract mates. Here we used finite element analysis (FEA) to test whether the antlers of M. giganteus could have withstood forces generated during fighting behaviour. We compared the mechanical performance of antlers in M. giganteus with three extant deer species: red deer (Cervus elaphus), fallow deer (Dama dama), and moose (Alces alces). Von Mises stress results suggest that M. giganteus was capable of withstanding some fighting loads, provided that their antlers interlocked proximally, and that it was best-adapted for withstanding loads from twisting rather than pushing actions, as were other deer with palmate antlers. We conclude that fighting in M. giganteus was likely more constrained and predictable than in extant deer. |
format |
Dataset |
author |
Klinkhamer, Ada J Woodley, Nicholas Neenan, James M Parr, William C H Clausen, Philip Sanchez-Villagra, Marcelo R Lister, Adrian Wroe, Stephen |
author_facet |
Klinkhamer, Ada J Woodley, Nicholas Neenan, James M Parr, William C H Clausen, Philip Sanchez-Villagra, Marcelo R Lister, Adrian Wroe, Stephen |
author_sort |
Klinkhamer, Ada J |
title |
Head to Head: the case for combative behaviour in Megaloceros giganteus |
title_short |
Head to Head: the case for combative behaviour in Megaloceros giganteus |
title_full |
Head to Head: the case for combative behaviour in Megaloceros giganteus |
title_fullStr |
Head to Head: the case for combative behaviour in Megaloceros giganteus |
title_full_unstemmed |
Head to Head: the case for combative behaviour in Megaloceros giganteus |
title_sort |
head to head: the case for combative behaviour in megaloceros giganteus |
publisher |
University of New England |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.25952/5d830b0e4a734 https://rune.une.edu.au/web/handle/1959.11/27548 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(62.500,62.500,-67.567,-67.567) |
geographic |
Giganteus |
geographic_facet |
Giganteus |
genre |
Alces alces |
genre_facet |
Alces alces |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.25952/5d830b0e4a734 |
_version_ |
1766256303076802560 |