London scientists say a species of giant deer, once thought to have become extinct during a cold spell 10,500 years ago, survived till about 7,000 years ago.
A University College London study, summarized in the latest issue of the journal Nature, involved collecting dozens of ancient bones and teeth that, when radiocarbon dated, revealed the Eurasian giant deer survived to about 5,000 BC -- much later than previously thought.
The giant deer measured nearly 7-feet tall at the top of their shoulders and had antlers measuring 11-feet across. The animals apparently made their last stand in the southern Ural Mountains between Asia and Europe, near the Black Sea.
Giant deer first appeared about 400,000 years and roamed much of the Eurasian continent alongside the woolly mammoth.
© Copyright 2004 by United Press International
