Wapiti means white rump in Shawnee and Cree
The elk (Cervus canadensis), or wapiti, is the second-largest member of the deer family, native to North America and Central and East Asia. Its English name is a colonial hand-me-down: elk first meant the European moose, and settlers in North America moved the word onto this very different animal.
Wapiti comes from a Shawnee and Cree word for white rump, after the pale fur by the tail that the animals fluff up to signal alarm, when fleeing, and while courting or sparring. By the seventeenth century moose had long vanished from Britain, so English speakers used elk loosely for any big deer, and the Oxford English Dictionary calls the word's history obscure. Early English writers, from Richard Hakluyt in 1584 to Thomas Jefferson in 1785, mostly called the American animal red deer, and one 1672 translator scolded ignorant people for calling it elk.
Elk live in open forest and at forest edges, grazing grass and sedge and browsing leaves, twigs and bark. Males grow blood- and nerve-filled antlers that drop off each year as the weather warms. In the rut they posture, wrestle antlers and bugle, a loud run of whistles, bellows and screams meant to cow rivals and attract females.
Elk were long treated as a subspecies of the European red deer, but mitochondrial DNA studies from 1998 onward, including a large 2004 study, show a separate species closer to Thorold's deer and even sika deer. A wider rump patch and paler antlers set elk apart. The two still interbreed, and in New Zealand's Fiordland hybrids have wiped out almost all pure elk bloodlines.
In the Late Pleistocene elk ranged across Eurasia into Western Europe, and held on in the Alps and southern Sweden until after the Ice Age ended. Introduced herds in Argentina and New Zealand may threaten native ecosystems. Elk can pass diseases to and from livestock, and vaccination campaigns have had mixed results. Their meat is lean, carrying more protein than beef or chicken, and antler velvet supplements are a thriving trade in the United States, China and Canada.
Source: Elk
