wapiti

• WordNet 3.6
  • n wapiti common deer of temperate Europe and Asia
  • n wapiti large North American deer with large much-branched antlers in the male
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• • n Wapiti (Zoöl) The American elk (Cervus Canadensis). It is closely related to the European red deer, which it somewhat exceeds in size.☞ By some writers it is thought to be a variety of the red deer, but it is considered a distinct species by others. It is noted for the large, branching antlers of the male.
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• • n wapiti The North American stag or elk, Cervus canadensis, which is the North American representative of the stag or red deer of Europe, and resembles the latter, though it is much larger and of a stronger make, being one of the largest living representatives of the family Cervidæ. Wapiti is chiefly a book-name of this deer, which has generally been known since about 1809 as the elk—a name applied in Europe to a very different animal, corresponding to that called moose in North America. (See elk (with cut), moose, stag.) The full-grown male wapiti may exceed a height of 16 hands at the withers, and acquire a weight of more than 1,000 pounds, though not averaging over 600; the form is short for its stature. The coat is some shade of yellowish-gray or brownish-gray, darkening to chestnut-brown on the head, neck, and limbs, even blackening on the belly; on the rump is a white patch bordered with black and extending into the groin; the tail is extremely short. The antlers are very long, with comparatively slender, cylindric, and regularly curved beam, giving off in front the brow- and bez-antlers close together, the royal at end of first third of the beam, a large sur-royal at end of second third, and then forking dichotomously (only exceptionally acquiring any palmation like the crown of the European stag). A pair of good-sized antlers may weigh, with the skull, 50 or 60 pounds, measure 4 or 5 feet along the curve of the beam, and spread 3 or 4 feet apart. The venison is well flavored and highly nutritious. The wapiti has inhabited North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Mexico to about 57° in the interior; but it has been hunted out of nearly all its range, and is now found chiefly in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States, especially of the Upper Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. It is gregarious, goes in herds or droves sometimes of many hundreds, is slaughtered with little difficulty, and would soon become extinct were no measures taken for its preservation.
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• • n Wapiti wop′i-ti a species of deer of large size, native to North America—often called elk and gray moose, though very different from the true elk or moose-deer.
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