Moose, scientific name (alces alces), are the largest members of the deer family. They spend a lot of time in and around the water. Their long legs make shallow water out of a 4-foot-deep pond. It’s also important to note that they are excellent swimmers in deeper water.
Moose love to feed on riparian plants such as the plane leaf willow and the tea leaf willow. They also eat aquatic plants such as water lilies. What’s more, they like to wade in ponds and lakes to cool off or regulate their body temperature on hot summer days.
Temperature Regulation
The reason moose have developed this behavioral adaptation is due to the fact that they are very well insulated. They have two layers of hair. The first layer is a thick fur coat. Their outer layer is composed of longer hollow hairs. These hollow hairs or guard hairs have air inside them. This makes them buoyant. It also creates a dead air space over their inner layer of thick fur. Polar bears have a similar insulation infrastructure.
A moose’s insulation suits them well for cold temperatures and deep snow in the winter months. However, they may begin to pant at 41 degrees Fahrenheit (– 5 degrees Celsius) in the winter and become uncomfortably warm at around 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15.55 Celsius) when they have shed their winter coats.
Feeding On Aquatic Plants
Moose dive sometimes to graze on aquatic vegetation on the bottom of lakes. They can dive up to 20 feet or over 6 meters underwater and hold their breath for up to a full minute. They have large nostrils which are flexible. When they’re submerged, they close their nostrils like valves to keep the water out. They’re able to graze on nutrient-rich aquatic plants growing on a lake bottom or the bottom of a deep pond for, as stated, up to a minute before they need to come up for a breath of air. They are the only member of the deer family that can eat underwater. Other cervids eat aquatic plants, but only moose can chew and swallow with their head submerged.
It’s probably complicated for moose to dive since they naturally float. In other words, they carry around a natural life preserver with them everywhere they go in the form of all that hollow, air filled hair. It’s thought that they probably have to propel themselves downward with their paddle-like hooves. What’s more, they may expel air from their lungs to help themselves become less buoyant.
Moose Feed On Aquatic Plants To Salt And Other Minerals
Adult moose, depending on their size, need 40 to 70 pounds (18 to 32 kilograms) of plant material per day. They forage on browse such as leaves, buds, and twigs. However, browse is only a portion of their total menu. They need nutrient-rich aquatic plants to balance out their diets. Some underwater plants are very high in sodium chloride or salt. All animals need to take in a certain amount of salt for proper cellular function.
Consequently, one of the possible reasons that moose feed on underwater plants is to balance their sodium intake. According to the book (Moose: Behavior, Ecology, Conservation) by the world renowned cervid expert Dr. Valerius Geist, moose feeding on aquatic plants is most common in eastern and northern North America. This is possibly because they lack an alternative source of salt.
Orcas And Other Moose Predators
In marine environments, they are such powerful swimmers that sometimes moose swim in the ocean to travel between islands in search of food. Incidentally, moose are such strong swimmers that they can swim for over ten miles with no problem. In the past, they have been preyed upon by a mammal hunting killer whale type known as Biggs killer whales. The prospect of a moose, a terrestrial mammal and the largest member of the deer family, being eaten by an orca whale, one of the apex predators of the sea, so intrigued famous series’ pet foolery creator Ben Hed, that he created a comic strip depicting such an event.
The orca is not a regular predator of the moose. Instead, wolves, grizzly bears, and humans are the biggest threats to these animals. Mountain lions also kill moose. For a lone cougar to kill a moose, it must be precise. The most likely way for a mountain lion to take down a moose is to leap on its back and bite down on the moose’s neck, crushing its larynx.
Where Do Moose Live?
Moose live in the northern parts of the world. Outside of North America, moose live in China, Mongolia, Russia, the Baltic states, and Scandanavia. Incidentally, in Europe, moose are called elk. Early settlers to New England from Europe mistakenly called wapiti elk because, with their large body mass, they resembled their European elk. From there, the misnomer stuck. Wapiti became elk, and North American elk became moose. The word moose is Algonquian in origin. It is derived from the word moosu, which translated means, ” He strips off”. Source
In North America, we have four different sub-species of moose. Once again, according to the book (Moose: Behavior, Ecology, Conservation) by Dr. Valerius Geist, differences in North American moose are chiefly environmental and not genetic. However, there are four recognized subspecies in North America. They are listed below. The following information is from the Krebs Creek article titled Moose Subspecies Of North America
- Eastern Moose– The range of the Eastern Moose, extends across Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia, Eastern Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Maine, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
- Western Moose Western Moose inhabit deciduous and boreal forests in central Canadian provinces, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
- Alaska Moose – The Alaska (or Yukon) Moose is the largest of the North American Moose subspecies. These animals live in northern North America. They range in Alaska and the western Yukon Territory.
- The Shiras Moose ranges in Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Idaho, and southwestern Alberta and British Columbia.
