Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
was the largest deer that ever lived. Its enormous antlers—up to twelve feet wide (some sources say
up to fourteen feet)—were somewhat palmate (flattened, with fingerlike projections), although not as
broadly so as those of a moose.
The species received its common name because the best-preserved specimens have been found in
peat bogs and lake silt in Ireland. This giant deer became extinct after the end of the last ice age, and
the latest known specimen of this truly remarkable beast dates back about eleven thousand years.
Extinct giants notwithstanding, our present-day moose is enormously impressive in its own right.
How large is a moose? Of the seven subspecies of moose worldwide (the European subspecies is called
elk), the largest is believed to be the Alaskan moose. There are various ways to measure the size of a
moose. Weight is one of them, and a huge bull moose can weigh 1,600 pounds. Then there is height. A
large moose can stand at least seven and a half feet tall at the shoulders, and the tips of the antlers on a
big bull may tower a full ten feet above the ground. All of this is accompanied by strength commensur-
ate with the immense height and bulk of its owner.
Antler development is equally impressive as a measure of size. Moose antlers can stretch as wide
as six and a half feet and weigh well over fifty pounds while the moose is wearing them (shed antlers
dry out and weigh substantially less). One of the mysteries of nature is how a moose can run full tilt
through dense forest without constantly banging those great antlers against trees and other obstructions.
Evidently a bull moose has an astonishing sense of spatial relations wired into its genetic makeup to
give it such uncanny ability.
As with the antlers of their deer relatives, moose shed those great appendages every winter and grow
another set, starting in the spring. Moose antlers, like those of deer, are quite tender during the growing
period, covered with velvet and full of blood vessels and nerves.
A yearling bull will usually produce a set of spikes, just as many yearling whitetail bucks do. The
following year, the two-year-old bull will grow small palms. Thereafter—health and other considera-
tions being equal—his antler size will increase year by year until he reaches his prime. Then antler size
levels off and remains more or less constant for a few more years. If the bull survives past his prime,
antler size will begin to diminish as age takes its toll.
In general, ages five to ten years are considered the prime of life for a bull, though a few exceptional
individuals may prolong that for another two or three years. These exceptions are likely the result of a
combination of good nutrition, excellent health, lack of serious injuries, and genetics. Moose in gener-
al are substantially longer-lived than white-tailed deer. They often live well into their teens, and a few
may even reach the age of twenty, so an occasional bull a dozen or so years old may still manage to be
the biggest kid on the block, so to speak.
With the diminishing sunlight of late September, testosterone levels in the bulls rise accordingly, and
their huge antlers come into their own. Now the mature bulls are just spoiling for a fight in order to
show their dominance and claim a small harem of cows. Doubly unpredictable and dangerous during
the rut, feisty bulls have been known to attack strange objects; there have even been reports of a bull
moose charging a railroad locomotive!
