Oh deer!

This is the Giant Irish deer – Megaloceros giganteus from the Creatures of the Past Gallery in Kelvingrove. Unlike many of the other exhibits this is not a model. The only restoration required was to the very impressive antlers. I don't normally like to blip this sort of thing but enjoyed a bit of playing about with shapes and colours in the processing. The rather blurry extra shows it as it is displayed in situ.

The giant Irish deer, (Megaloceros giganteus) was a large animal that stood about two metres high at the shoulder. It is famed for its magnificent antlers, the largest of any deer. The antlers on this specimen from Naul, north of Dublin, measure 2.75 metres across but even larger examples, up to 3.65 metres are known.

Often mistakenly called the Irish elk, this extinct Ice Age deer is a relative of the fallow deer. The giant Irish deer lived in grassland and open woodland. It is particularly associated with Ireland because excellent fossil remains – unearthed from clay under peat bogs – are common there. However the species also lived here in Scotland as well as through Europe and western Asia.

The giant Irish deer lived during the late Ice Age. The reason for its extinction is not fully understood but climate change at the end of the Ice Age, as well as hunting and habitat change by humans, may have been contributing factors. It died out in Ireland about 10,500 years ago and in Scotland about 9,000 years ago.