Learn like a commentator and talk about the appearance, characteristics, living habits and legendary experiences of the elk.

You have asked the right person. My hometown is Yancheng, Jiangsu, also known as the hometown of elk.

Elk, in the Cervidae family, is also known as Father David's deer. Because its head and face are like a horse, its antlers are like a deer, its neck is like a camel, and its tail is like a donkey, it is also called the four unlike animals. It is native to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in China. In swamp areas, they feed on grass and aquatic plants, and sometimes go to the sea to eat seaweed. The body is two meters long and weighs 300 kilograms. It was once widely distributed in East Asia. Later, due to natural climate changes and human factors, it became almost extinct in the late Han Dynasty. During the Yuan Dynasty, the remaining elk were captured and transported to the royal hunting grounds for hunting. By the 19th century, only one group remained in the Nanhaizi Royal Hunting Garden in Beijing. Shortly after being discovered in the West, he was captured by the Eight-Power Allied Forces and disappeared from China.

In China, the elk is also called Sibeiang and is considered a spiritual animal. The most famous image is Jiang Ziya's mount Sibuxiang in the classic novel "The Romance of the Gods".

Elk body guard cub

About 2 meters long. The male's shoulder height is 0.8~0.85 meters, the female's is 0.7~0.75 meters, and the newborn weighs about 12 kilograms. Generally, adult male elk can weigh up to 250 kilograms and have longer horns. They shed their horns once every December. Female elk have no antlers and are smaller. Because it is Jiang Ziya's mount in the ancient mythological novel "Feng Shen Bang", it is even more legendary. Elk's antlers can stand on three legs when turned upside down, which is unique among deer. The neck and back are relatively thick, and the limbs are thick. The main hoof is wide and can be separated, there is a healthy membrane between the toes, and the side hooves are well developed, making it suitable for walking in swamps. The hair is reddish-brown in summer and becomes brownish-yellow after shedding in winter. Newborn cubs have orange-red hair with white spots. The long tail is used to repel mosquitoes and flies to adapt to the swamp environment. Male elk calves grow bifurcated antlers when they are two years old, and the forked antlers are not fully developed until six years old. The head is large, the snout is narrow and long, the exposed part of the nose is wide, the eyes are small, and the infraorbital gland is prominent. The gestation period of female elk is longer than that of other deer, generally more than nine and a half months, and each litter only gives birth to one calf. There are no records of twins or multiple births.

Elk is a large herbivore with a body length of 170-217 cm, a tail length of 60-75 cm, a shoulder height of 122-137 cm, and a weight of 120-180 kg. Females are slightly smaller than males. The female has no horns on her head, while the male horn has a special shape and no eyebrow branches. The horn trunk is divided into front and rear branches above the base of the horn. The front branch extends upward, and then is divided into two front and back branches. Some small branches grow on each branch. , the back branches extend straight backwards, and sometimes some small branches grow from the ends, with the longest horn up to 80 cm. The head is large, the snout is narrow and long, the exposed part of the nose is wide, the eyes are small, and the infraorbital gland is prominent. The limbs are thick, the main hooves are wide and fleshy, and have well-developed hanging hooves, which make a loud knocking sound when walking. The tail is particularly long, downy, grey-black, with a yellow-white belly and dark brown tip. In summer, the body hair is red rust color, with a black vertical stripe on the back of the neck, and the abdomen and buttocks are brown and white. After September, the body hair is replaced by longer and thicker gray winter hair. Elk are gregarious and good at swimming, and like to feed on young grasses and other aquatic plants.

Wild young elk

Elk is a national first-level protected animal. It was once a critically endangered species according to the IUCN Red Book of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. However, with the continuous increase in its population in recent years , has been withdrawn from the "Red Book" of the world's endangered animals list. China’s achievement in protecting wild animals, the recovery of the lost elk, is not only a living teaching material for patriotism education, but also an important example to express to the public the possibility and necessity of the coordinated development of man and nature.