page_title: Cervalces latifrons
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Cervalces latifrons / Description
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Fossil of Cervalces, an extinct mammal - Took the picture at Museo di Scienze Naturali di Bergamo
context_page_description: Cervalces latifrons, the broad-fronted moose, was a giant species of moose that inhabited the holarctic regions of Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene epoch. It is believed to be the largest species of deer that ever existed, larger than its North American relative Cervalces scotti, Megaloceros, and the modern moose.
context_section_description: Cervalces latifrons was first described by Mr Randall Johnson in 1874. A frontal bone attached to part of an antler of a previously unknown species of deer was found at low tide on the beachfront at Happisburgh, Norfolk, in the "Forest Bed". Johnson, who retained the specimen in his collection, named it Cervus latifrons, Cervus being the only genus of deer known at that time. The specific name "latifrons" refers to the wide frontal bone of this large species. The morphology of the animal as deduced from this fossil and from others later found in this formation and in continental Europe differs little from modern moose. It was later placed in the genus Cervalces which it shares with the also extinct Cervalces scotti from North America. The antlers of the males had short beams and large palmate lobes with up to ten large points. They were probably for display purposes to impress the female rather than for fighting because these moose are believed to have roamed as solitary individuals. The average sized Cervalces latifrons was quite a bit more massive than other large moose-like deer, such Cervalces scotti, the largest races of the extant moose and the Irish elk (Megaloceros giganteus), despite some overlap in shoulder height, and is the largest deer ever known to exist. C. latifrons is estimated to have averaged 2.1 m (6 ft 11 in) high at the shoulder. Body mass of C. latifrons was around 1,000 kg (2,200 lb), putting it around 30% heavier than C. scotti. In some cases, this species could have weighed perhaps up to 1,200 kg (2,600 lb) with the largest specimens perhaps reaching  2.5 m (8.2 ft) at the shoulder. It was about the same mass and far taller than a modern bull American bison (Bison bison) and could have weighed about twice as much as the Irish elk (Megaloceros giganteus) but is much less well known to the general public, probably because the span of its antlers at 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) was smaller than that of the Irish elk.
caption: Fossils in Bergamo
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