The elk is an artiodactyl mammal of the deer family. It is the largest land animal living in Udmurtia.
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Elk skull
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The elk skull in the museum’s collection is hardly older than two thousand years. It was found in Uvinsky district of the Republic of Udmurtia. Contemporary elk species have existed for about a million years. This is confirmed by the bone remnants found buried in earth layers where they had spent between half a million and a million years.
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Contemporary elk species are distributed throughout Udmurtia, forested areas of Eurasia and North America. Elks are sometimes seen in the tundra, wooded steppe, or on the fringe of the steppe zone. Elks live 3o to 40 years on average. They have excellent hearing and smelling. An adult elk may weigh as much as 560 kg and reach three meters in length and two meters in height. Despite such impressive proportions, elks are frequent catch for wolves, bears, and lynx.
At sunset and dawn, move out to eat. They love tree and shrub sprouts and bark, with a preference for ashberry, aspen, birch, bird cherry, pine, juniper, and other. In the summer, elks feed on the plants that grow near rivers, including buckbean, sedge, water lily, and cattail. These animals also eat pigweed, horsetail, and cowslip.
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Between August and September, elks go into estrus to find a couple. Bull elks bugle, producing a sound that resembles whining and is heard for dozens of miles. Cow elks respond with a short ‘Oh' or snorting sound. During this period, they ward off the calves born last year, and bulls eat very little and lose weight intensively.
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The first calves are born in late May-early June. After just several minutes, a calf can stand on its own, and two or three days later it can move around freely. The mother is always at a distance, but she is always around to protect its baby from any enemy attacks.
For three or four days after birth, calves follow their mothers around, and in a week’s time they learn to run quickly and try swimming for the first time. Cows milk their calves for three months, and with time, they begin trying aspen and willow sprouts, and raspberry leaves. When the estrus is over, the calves have been forced away earlier, reunite with their mothers and winter with her.
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Kuzebai Gerd National Museum of the Republic of Udmurtia
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