A large extinct European deer of the genus Megaceros of the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs, having very large palmate antlers. Any member of a genus (Megaloceros) of extinct giant deer commonly found as fossils in Pleistocene deposits (1.8 million-10,000 years ago) in Europe and Asia. About the size of a modern moose, the Irish elk had the largest antlers of any form of deer known, in some specimens about 13 ft (4 m) across. It may have survived until 700-500 BC