Bugle Teeth question

James Riley

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I hear they are vestigial. If so, I suspect there would be a fossil record of what they once were. Does anyone know anything about this? Were they big, ferocious looking fangs? If so, was the elk larger or smaller? Were the antlers smaller or larger? I've done some searching and found nothing, other than Musk Deer. My Elk Of North America doesn't have much. Thanks for any leads.
 
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Perhaps they're related to these guys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_deer

I just got my North American Elk: Ecology and Management book in the mail this week. I'll look in there for an answer; it's dang near 1,000 pages long so my guess is it's got anything you'd ever want to know about an elk in there plus some extra.
 
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I've killed mule deer x1, whitetail deer x4-5, and caribou x3 with "bugle teeth" so I presume it must be linked to their ancestors?
 
Small "jungle deer" had long fangs and small or no antlers. Look up pictures of "muntjac", "water deer", "musk deer",or "pudu". Theses old world deer had fangs and eventually developed into the new world stags we hunt in North America whose anlters (and body size)grew and tusks shrunk. At least that is what I remember from biology class.
 
I believe they are remnants of tusks ancient ungulates used to dig tubers out.
The elk that were around with the sloths,mastadons, and sabertooth tigers.
Saw some fossils at LaBrea Tar Pits museum when I was a kid.
They were twice the size I believe.Much larger than even the Merriams
 
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