The Morphological Distinction between the postcranial skeleton of Cervalces / Alces and Megaloceros giganteus (Blumenbach 1799) and comparison between the two Alceini genera from the Upper Pliocene-Holocene of Western Europe

• Main Author: BREDA, Marzia
• Other Authors: Breda, Marzia
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: Cervalce; Alces alce; Megaloceros giganteu; Postcranial skeleton; Morphological features; Alces alces; alce
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11392/1463521

Alces alces, Cervalces and Megaloceros giganteus are deer of approximately the same size whose limb bones could be exchanged if fragmentary so morphological features are needed, enabling identification of postcranials remains. In thiswork the limb bone features described by Pfeiffer (1999a) as distinguishing Cervalces latifrons from M. giganteus are re-analyzed and further developed, considering also the vertebral column, the articular girdles and the carpals and tarsal elements. This analysis is extended to the other Cervalces species (C. gallicus, C. carnutorum and C. scotti) and to the present-day moose Alces alces. It results in a substantial uniformity in the postcranial skeleton of the species of the genus Cervalces, confirming what has already been stated by Sher (1987), that the Alceini, in the Upper Pliocene, constituted an already well-defined morphological type that did not undergo further structural postcranial remodeling.