Talk:Moose

Body size and weight

Irish elk/Alaskan moose as largest deer of all time? This information is false, although generally accepted, perhaps due to the massive size of the antlers of the former and its sometime moniker "giant deer". One of your sources is a book by Valerius Geist. I believe it is in another of his books, DEER OF THE WORLD, wherein he states that the broad-fronted moose, ALCES LATIFRONS, could be up to twice as heavy as the largest modern Alaskan moose--or close to two tons--which means up to twice as heavy as the Irish elk as well. This makes it by far the largest deer of all time. Dr. Geist confirmed this for me in an email. Also, any internet search will come up with similar information for ALCES LATIFRONS. When I can, I will come up with an exact citation from Dr. Geist's book. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kotosquito (talk • contribs) 04:37, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

female with antlers

For some odd reason this information was "hidden" with a note that the source did not seem reliable. The Alaska Public Radio Network is probably the most reliable source for information on events in Alaska as they have a network of reporters all over the state, not just one "stringer" sitting in Anchorage and phoning in stories. Unfortunately the audio file that was originally attached to this cite seems to no longer be online, but the written abstract verifies the basic fact that although it is exceedingly rare it is possible for a cow moose to grow antlers The Anchorage Daily News, Alaska's biggest newspaper, found the information reliable enough to reprint [1], giving credit to the reporter from APRN, and both reports mention that the animal's head was examined by a biologist from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, who verified that it was a female despite the antlers. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:39, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

While I don't dispute the ADN or APRN's reliability, even the best news agency can make mistakes. My usual motto is: When in doubt, see what the books have to say on it. From Animal skulls: a guide to North American species by Mark Elbroch, page 490: "There are also cases of female moose growing small antlers. (Bowyer et al. 2003)" The Journal of Mammology in 1990 apparently had an article titled Velvet-antlered female moose by W. Wishard, but I don't have a copy of it. Although old, the book The moose book: facts and stories from northern forests by Samuel Merrill also mentions an account of female moose with antlers. It is mentioned again in Biological exuberance: animal homosexuality and natural diversity By Bruce Bagemihl, (which again references Wishard).

These sources all appear to corroborate the APRN's story. That was just from a few minutes of research, but I hope it helps. Zaereth (talk) 23:28, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

genitalia

Seen enough?

Ahhh! Too much!!

I took this picture in low light and had to blow it up to make the "subject" clearly visible. Do we want to use this in the article? I dunno. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:14, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Beeblebrox. I don't see why not, although the photo is a bit fuzzy. I have a few photos on my user page that I managed to take from pretty close up. A couple show the genitals, although that's not what I was aiming for. I found this guy sleeping on my lawn last year, and managed to wake him up with the following surprised look on his face. (I don't recommend getting that close. They are, apparently, very light sleepers.)

One problem I would watch for, however, is that the article doesn't become overly crowded with pictures. Don't get me wrong, I like lots of photos, until it starts crowding out the text. I do like the little gallery we have in the Social structure and reproduction section, as this does not crowd the text, and allows for many more photos. So I see no reason why you picture would not fit nicely there. Feel free to use any of mine if you like. Zaereth (talk) 18:57, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

gallery changes

I recently discovered a great image of newborn calves nursing that was in an old camera, and have replaced the first image in the gallery in the "Social structure and reproduction" section with it. I also removed the two images at the end. These were good quality images but the idea of the gallery was to show the development of moose through their first year in chronological order, not to just display lots of nice images of moose calves. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:31, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

vehicle collision article error

In the vehicle collisions part it is stated: "... causing the body of the moose to fly up and over the car's hood and ..." This is false. Hitting the legs, thereby effectivle cutting them will make the animal drop down. It will not make the animal fly upwards. A moose body flying upwards would violate Newton's second law. Since the body of the animal may be as high as 5 feet of the ground however, it will drop onto the hood and slide in through the windshield. Driving faster will not help either, since the legs effectivle hooks on to the front of the vehicle, PULLING THE MOOSE BODY DOWN onto the hood/windscreen as the vehicle moves forward. http://www.vti.se/sv/publikationer/pdf/algdocka-av-gummi-for-krockprov.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tnilsson83 (talk • contribs) 12:13, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

You are correct. Text changed. Reference added. Dger (talk) 15:14, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Body size and weight

Irish elk/Alaskan moose as largest deer of all time? This information is false, although generally accepted, perhaps due to the massive size of the antlers of the former and its sometime moniker "giant deer". One of your sources is a book by Valerius Geist. I believe it is in another of his books, DEER OF THE WORLD, wherein he states that the broad-fronted moose, ALCES LATIFRONS, could be up to twice as heavy as the largest modern Alaskan moose--or close to two tons--which means up to twice as heavy as the Irish elk as well. This makes it by far the largest deer of all time. Dr. Geist confirmed this for me in an email. Also, any internet search will come up with similar information for ALCES LATIFRONS. When I can, I will come up with an exact citation from Dr. Geist's book. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kotosquito (talk • contribs) 04:37, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

The information most definitely is false. It appears to be a mis-interpretation of the source. The source, [52], is an excerpt from a book called Racks: A natural history of antlers and the animals that wear them.; the chapter is called "Of moose, megaloceros and miracles." What the source actually says is that the Irish elk (Megaloceros giganteus) had the largest antlers of any deer, living or exinct. (14 feet, or over 4 meters!) It does not say that the elk, (or the Alaskan moose) are the largest deer of all time.

Alces latifrons most likely is the largest, which existed in the early to middle pleistocene age; although my only sources are from google books, and so are incomplete. I think it would be interesting to have a short section on prehistoric moose. As far as I can tell, the earliest known example comes from about 2 million years ago, and are called Alces gallicus. Although it was much smaller than its descendent, Alces latifrons, it had a longer rack, consisting of a long horizontal bar ending in palmations, with no tines. I think it would be interesting to have some of the paleontology of moose listed here. That way we would have a place to link to the various species. I found a little info in Morphological Change in Quaternary Mammals of North America but, once again, google book is limiting my access. If you have any better sources, and can help out, that would be appreciated. Zaereth (talk) 18:38, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I went ahead and corrected the problem, adding a section on paleontology. I hope it meets with both your and Dr. Geist's approval. As far as I can tell, I'm only missing one species, libralces reynoldsi, but haven't been able to locate any useful information about it. If anyone has any info on it, then please add something to the article. Also, both the libralces article and the cervalces article could use some expanding, if anyone feels up to it. (It may be a long while before I can get to them.) Zaereth (talk) 18:08, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Edit request on 29 November 2011

There is a misspelled word in the caption of the last photo. The caption states "Kaliforsky Beach Road, Kenai, Alaska, trees and brush are trimmed along high moose crossing areas so that moose can be seen as they approach the road."

The name of the road is the "Kalifornsky" Beach Road, not "Kaliforsky." You can check it using Google maps if you like. I have driven this road many times.

Thanks for the change.

64.93.120.94 (talk) 04:19, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

 Done Thank you. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 05:31, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

My bad. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:54, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

"Tame" moose

Other than the Soviet-era attempts, is there any real documentation that anyone has ever domesticated a moose? The image currently in that section is a drawing of a supposedly tame moose pulling a sleigh. I find that highly unlikely and probably a hoax. I can imagine moose on a farm staying inside a fence and being fed in one place like cows, but a full grown bull moose pulling a sleigh? Beeblebrox (talk) 20:36, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it is extremely unlikely. Moose are not long-distance runners, nor do they have the social characteristics that make horses so easy to work with. Moose are loners and, except during hunting season, they can be quite bullyish and seem to hold grudges. The person in the drawing can be seen holding a whip, which I highly doubt he would've been able to use without some retaliation. Unlike horses, moose are also incredibly flexible animals. I've seen moose scratch their own backs with their hind-legs, and they would have no problem kicking someone right off of their back, which is why you never see anyone riding one. (I've also seen moose stand fully erect on their hind-legs, and spend hours like that, walking around a tree to reach the high-branches. Truely an impressive sight ... I mean, if you think they look big on all fours, you should see a full-grown bull walking on two.)

There is a guy in The Butte, just outside of Palmer, Alaska, that has two "domesticated" moose living on his property. They can't eat hay, like cows and horses do, and it's easier to just let them graze for themselves than to try to go out and procure thre right kind of food. Because tree-shoots are relatively small, moose generally spend all of their free time foraging, just to get enough to survive. There were some pictures on the internet a few years ago, showing a man who hooked a moose up to a plow. According to him, the moose was wild and had been coming around his horses ever since it was a small calf, so he decided to see if he could hook it to the plow, but he couldn't get it to actually pull the plow. That, too, I highly suspect was a hoax. Zaereth (talk) 22:31, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

So, we should either remove the image or change the caption to indicate that it is almost certainly fanciful. Either one would work for me. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:08, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I thought it was real, since the other images in that book seem to be. Since there's doubt, I'll remove it. InverseHypercube 07:45, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Swedes don't put up nets and fences to protect moose, they do it to protect people

These precautions are taken because car crashes involving Moose have a very high fatality rate for the front seat passagers. The way the text about Moose as food looks now it kind of insinuates that the crazy Swedes want the Moose to live so that their fall menus will have the obligatory Moose-dish. Furthermore that's an exageration as well, Moose isn't that commonly consumed other than, perhaps, in nothern Sweden (in which only a small minority of the Swedish population lives).