tule elk: see wapiti.

elk, name applied to several large members of the deer family. It most properly designates the largest member of the family, Alces alces, found in the northern regions of Eurasia and North America. In North America this animal is called moose. The name elk is used in North America to designate a different animal, the wapiti, closely related to the red deer of Europe. The prehistoric Irish elk, Megaceros giganteus, is still another species, related to the fallow deer. It was found in Europe and W Asia in Pleistocene and early Holocene times and had an 11-ft (3.3-m) antler span, the largest of any deer. All animals called elk are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Mammalia, order Artiodactyla, family Cervidae.

dwarf elk: see wapiti.

Roosevelt elk: see wapiti.

Rocky Mountain elk: see wapiti.

Olympic elk: see wapiti.

Irish elk: see elk.

Elk Island National Park, 75 sq mi (194 sq km), central Alta., Canada, near Edmonton; est. 1913. It occupies a wooded rolling region in the midst of level farmland. The park is Canada's major fenced preserve for buffalo and other prairie animals. Numerous small lakes offer summertime recreation.

Elk Grove Village, village (1990 pop. 33,429), Cook and Du Page counties, NE Ill., a suburb of Chicago; inc. 1956. With a population of c.100 at the time of its establishment on open farmland, the village has grown dramatically and steadily, largely because of its industrial park. Its many manufactures include electronics.

Any of several species of large deer in the genus Cervus, notably the red deer of Europe, the Kashmir stag, and the Himalayan shou, as well as the North American deer more correctly called wapiti. The creature called elk in Europe is a member of the species (Alces alces) known in North America as moose. The name is also applied to the extinct Irish elk.

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Any member of a genus (Megaloceros) of extinct giant deer commonly found as fossils in Pleistocene deposits (1.8 million–10,000 years ago) in Europe and Asia. About the size of a modern moose, the Irish elk had the largest antlers of any form of deer known, in some specimens about 13 ft (4 m) across. It may have survived until circa 700–500 BC.

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