Irish Quaternary Vertebrates

Abstract

The study of Irish Quaternary vertebrates has a long history, but with significant work in recent decades that allows for clear sequencing of faunas and notable advances in understanding for particular species. The primary resource for study is the museum collections of bones excavated from Irish caves in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Known faunas are much more limited in diversity and antiquity than those of Britain or continental Europe. The oldest vertebrate fossils were discovered in sediments from 109 to 74 ky BP in the form of woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) and musk ox (Ovibos moschatus) late in MIS 5, or early in MIS 4. The pre-Last Glacial Maximum fauna also included spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta), the giant deer (Megaloceros giganteus), horse (Equus ferus), brown bear (Ursus arctos), reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), red deer (Cervus elaphus), Arctic fox (Alopex lagopus), stoat (Mustela erminea), collared lemming (Dicrostonyx torquatus), Norwegian lemming (Lemmus lemmus) and mountain hare (Lepus timidus). Faunas of the Woodgrange Interstadial include remains from open sites as well as caves and are dominated by discoveries of giant deer, but red deer, reindeer, brown bear, wolf, stoat and hare are also present. By the Holocene, Ireland was an island with its first human settlements, and faunas show their impacts through introductions and extirpations, but there are also indications of some species surviving through the Younger Dryas into the Holocene.