50 Fun Facts About Moose

The moose is the largest living member of which animal family?

It is the only surviving species in the genus Alces and, after the bison, the second-heaviest land animal in North America.

What is the animal Americans call a moose called in British English?

Confusingly, Americans use 'elk' for a different deer, the wapiti.

The word 'moose' entered English by 1606 from which language family?

Early sources trace it to a word meaning 'he strips off', for the way the animal strips bark and twigs.

How are a bull moose's antlers described, in contrast to the twig-shaped antlers of other deer?

They take only three to five months to grow fully, making them one of the fastest-growing organs in the animal kingdom.

What is the fold of skin hanging under a moose's chin called?

Both males and females have one.

How deep have moose been known to dive to reach plants on lake bottoms?

Their nostrils can seal shut while they browse underwater.

What feature of a moose's guard hairs helps it stay afloat when swimming?

The same hollow hairs provide insulation through Arctic winters.

Which is the moose's only confirmed marine predator?

They occasionally take moose swimming between islands on the Northwest Coast; a Greenland shark has been recorded scavenging one.

Which big cat regularly preys on adult moose?

Otherwise a full-grown moose has few enemies beyond wolf packs and brown bears.

Worldwide, only one wild mammal injures more people than moose. Which?

Moose are not usually aggressive to humans, but they can kick in every direction, including sideways.

Which ancient author first described the moose, in his account of the Gallic wars?

He called them alces and repeated some odd claims about them.

Moose were introduced to which Canadian island in 1878 and 1904, becoming its dominant large herbivore?

About 150,000 of them descend from just four animals brought over in the 1900s.

The island's roughly 150,000 moose are descended from how many introduced animals?

They are not native and their impact on the island's plants and endemic species is well documented.

As of the 2020s, which country was estimated to have the greatest moose population?

Estimates for Canada run from 500,000 to a million animals.

Which European country's annual moose hunt, over 150,000 animals, is twice North America's total harvest?

Antlers found in hut remains near Alby show people there were hunting moose around 6000 BC.

Roughly how much did the largest confirmed moose, shot on the Yukon River in 1897, weigh?

It stood 2.33 metres at the shoulder; heavier claims exist but none has been authenticated.

Which subspecies is the largest of them all?

Bulls can stand over 2.1 metres at the shoulder with antlers spanning 1.8 metres.

Which common livestock feed can be fatal to a moose because it cannot digest it?

Their expensive, varied diet is one reason they were never widely domesticated.

An experimental farm in which country keeps a tame moose herd mainly for its milk?

Kostroma Moose Farm has run since 1963 and supplies a nearby sanatorium.

In which months does the moose rut, or mating season, take place?

Mature bulls stop feeding entirely for about two weeks during the rut.

Why do bull moose drop their antlers after the mating season?

Immature bulls may keep theirs until the following spring.

Unlike most deer, moose do not form herds. A calf stays with its mother for how long?

That is roughly until the cow comes into estrus again.

From how far away can a bull moose's grunts be heard?

Females make a wail-like sound instead.

What is the Älgtest, better known in English by its animal name?

Because a moose's centre of mass sits above the hood of most cars, collisions send the body through the windscreen.

Which deer-borne parasite is blamed for moose declines in the south of their range?

Liver flukes and winter ticks add to the toll, and milder winters help all three thrive.

Moose reintroduced in 1978 to which state had grown to a herd topping 2,400 by the 2010s?

Isolated groups have also been verified as far south as Utah.

Ten moose were released into Fiordland in 1910 in a failed attempt to establish them where?

The last proven sighting there was in 1952.

How does a moose's hoof help it cross soft ground and snow?

The larger surface area also makes them more efficient swimmers.

How high at the shoulder does an average adult moose stand?

That is more than 30 cm taller than the next-largest deer, the wapiti.

With good nutrition, what share of moose births can be twins?

Newborn calves have reddish fur that turns brown as they mature.

Which Michigan island's isolated moose population is studied alongside its wolves?

Roughly 2,000 moose lived there in 2019.

By what year had moose gone extinct in Massachusetts, before recolonising in the 1960s?

By 2010 the state had 850 to 950 again, spreading down from Vermont and New Hampshire.

Bullwinkle J. Moose lives in which fictional Minnesota town?

It spoofs the real International Falls; Bill Scott, the show's head writer, was his original voice.

Bullwinkle and Rocky share the middle initial 'J' in honour of whom?

Ward and Alex Anderson first drew Bullwinkle for an unmade project called The Frostbite Falls Review.

The Loyal Order of Moose fraternal organisation was founded in 1888 in which city?

It is now headquartered at Mooseheart, Illinois, a community for children in need west of Chicago.

Moose Jaw, home to the roadside giant Mac the Moose, is a city in which Canadian province?

Its other big draw is the Tunnels of Moose Jaw, with a 'Chicago Connection' tour.

Which of these predators is the only one besides the wolf to attack moose in both Eurasia and North America?

Even so, brown bears usually prefer to scavenge wolf kills or take calves rather than tackle adults.

A typical bull moose weighs roughly how much?

Cows are lighter, at 200 to 490 kg.

How is a moose's diet best described?

Branches, twigs and dead wood make up much of the winter menu.

European cave paintings show that people have hunted moose since which era?

Hunters once dug camouflaged pit traps up to 4 by 7 metres wide and 2 metres deep.

South of the Canadian border, which US state has by far the most moose?

Its 2012 headcount was about 76,000, and wanderers from there have seeded healthy herds in Vermont and New Hampshire.

How long is a female moose's pregnancy?

Calves arrive in May or June, usually one at a time, and are born with a reddish coat quite unlike an adult's brown.

What is the typical lifespan of a moose?

A bull's antlers peak in size and symmetry between roughly ages 5 and 12 and start to decline by 13.

The moose is the only living species in which genus?

Some scientists lump its extinct relatives into the same genus, while others park the fossil 'stag moose' in Cervalces and Libralces.

A microphone study found a bull's broad antlers act as a parabolic reflector for what?

Moose carrying antlers turn out to have sharper hearing than those without, since the flat palms amplify noise toward the ear.

American moose antlers have two lobes a side, like a butterfly. Eurasian ones resemble what?

Southern European moose often have small twig-like antlers instead, possibly because hunters prizing big palms bred the trait out.

After the last Ice Age, the European moose's range reached which part of the British Isles?

Europe then had a mix of boreal and deciduous forest that suited the animal across most of the continent's temperate zone.

Ten moose were introduced to Lille Vildmose in 2016-17, returning the species to which country?

Moose had vanished there as a breeding species about 4,500 years ago, though the odd animal still swims across the Øresund.

Moose were reintroduced to Kampinos National Park in 1951. In which country is it?

Today the country's herds live in the Biebrza river valley, Kampinos and Białowieża Forest, and the animals are slowly pushing south toward the Caucasus.

A castrated bull grows coral-like, never-shed antlers known by what name?

Inuit and other peoples called them 'devil's antlers'; they are living bone that keeps growing because testosterone is what normally halts antler growth.