The wapiti appeared very similar to the red deer of Europe (which itself was then almost extinct in Southern Britain) although it was much larger and was not red the two species are indeed closely related, though distinct behaviorally and genetically. The British began colonizing America in the 17th century, and found two common species of deer for which they had no names. Ĭonfusingly, the word "elk" is used in North America to refer to a different animal, Cervus canadensis, which is also called by the Algonquian indigenous name, "wapiti". Dictionaries of the 18th century simply described "elk" as a deer that was "as large as a horse". The word "elk" remained in usage because of English-speakers' familiarity with the species in Continental Europe however, without any living animals around to serve as a reference, the meaning became rather vague, and by the 17th century "elk" had a meaning similar to "large deer". The elk was probably extinct on the island before 900 AD. The youngest elk bones in Great Britain were found in Scotland and are roughly 3,900 years old. In the continental European languages, these forms of the word "elk" always refer to Alces alces. elg in Danish/ Norwegian älg in Swedish alnis in Latvian Elch in German and łoś in Polish. The word "elk" has cognates in other Indo-European languages, e.g. Noting that elk "is not the normal phonetic representative" of the Old English elch, the Oxford English Dictionary derives elk from Middle High German: elch, itself from Old High German: elaho.
Later, the species became known in Middle English as elk, elcke, or elke, appearing in the Latinized form alke, with the spelling alce borrowed directly from Latin: alces. By the 8th century, during the Early Middle Ages, the species was known as Old English: elch, elh, eolh, derived from the Proto-Germanic: *elho-, *elhon- and possibly connected with the Old Norse: elgr. In Classical Antiquity, the animal was known as ἄλκη álkē in Greek and alces in Latin, words probably borrowed from a Germanic language or another language of northern Europe. A mature male moose is called a bull, a mature female a cow, and an immature moose of either sex a calf.Īccording to the Oxford English Dictionary, the etymology of the species is "of obscure history". The word "elk" in North American English refers to a completely different species of deer, Cervus canadensis, also called the wapiti. Their mating season in the autumn features energetic fights between males competing for a female.Īlces alces is called a "moose" in North American English, but an "elk" in British English. Although generally slow-moving and sedentary, moose can become aggressive, and move quickly if angered or startled. Unlike most other deer species, moose do not form herds and are solitary animals, aside from calves who remain with their mother until the cow begins estrus (typically at 18 months after birth of the calf), at which point the cow chases them away. Predators of moose include wolves, bears, humans and (rarely) wolverines. Its diet consists of both terrestrial and aquatic vegetation. Currently, most moose occur in Canada, Alaska, New England (with Maine having the most of the lower 48 states), New York State, Fennoscandia, the Baltic states, Poland, Kazakhstan, and Russia. It has been reintroduced to some of its former habitats. Hunting and other human activities have caused a reduction in the size of the moose's range over time. Moose typically inhabit boreal forests and temperate broadleaf and mixed forests of the Northern Hemisphere in temperate to subarctic climates.
Most adult male moose have distinctive broad, palmate ("open-hand shaped") antlers most other members of the deer family have antlers with a dendritic ("twig-like") configuration. The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) ( Alces alces) is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family.
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