The largest species of deer with large open-hand shaped antlers found in Northern Europe, Asia, and North America.
Also known as an "elk" in UK English, but the term in English began to simply refer to large deer in general by the 17th century due to moose having been long extinct on the British Isles. North American colonists eventually started calling Cervus canadensis, a deer species native to North American and the second largest deer species in general, by the term "elk."
