Talk:Alces alces

Im Englischen heißt der Elch "moose", "elk" bezeichnet den Wapiti-Hirsch. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.182.126.222 (talk • contribs)

It's actually more complicated than that. In North American English its a moose, and the animal known elsewhere as a "wapiti" is called an elk. In most of the rest of the English-speaking world "elk" refers to alces alces. This source of this discrepancy is apparently due to British explorers, who had never seen either animal in their homeland, misidentifying the "wapiti" as an elk. When they encountered the much larger moose, they adopted a Native American word for it. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:44, 5 February 2013 (UTC)