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Moose In Love With A Statue, Grand Lake, Colorado, United States
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The moose (North America) or European elk (Europe) (Alces alces) is the largest extant species in the deer family. Moose are distinguished by the palmate antlers of the males; other members of the family have antlers with a "twig-like" configuration. Moose typically inhabit boreal and mixed deciduous forests of the Northern Hemisphere in temperate to subarctic climates.
The animal bearing the scientific name Alces alces is known in Britain as the Eurasian Elk, and in North America and New Zealand as the moose.
The British English word elk has cognates in other Indo-European languages, for example älg in Swedish, Elch in German and łoś in Polish. Confusingly, the word elk is used in North America to refer to a different animal, Cervus canadensis, also known as the wapiti. Except for its much larger size (it is the second largest deer species in the world), C. canadensis is almost identical to the smaller red deer of Central and Western Europe. Presumably early European explorers in North America called it elk because of its size.
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