Finrod
Rohan
Dec 10 2012, 6:33pm
Views: 1149
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As awesome as it is, I don't want to see an elvish cavalery on deers at the BotFA...
And also I wanted to say that Thranduil riding a deer makes the rumors about a dwarven cavalery on wild boars more believable...We'll see in the next two instalments.
Like deer themselves, both elk (wapiti) and moose, and for that matter reindeer (caribou), are all cervids. They vary signifcantly in size and range, and somewhat in appearance. All have antlers, not horns.
An elk is really Cervus canadensis. It can weigh up to 1,300 pounds, which is simply huge. A moose, Alces alces, can outweigh them, normally being up to 1,500 pounds with one record of 1,800 pounds and several unsubstantiated reports of even larger, perhaps as high as 2,600 pounds. A moose really is a deer built to pachydermal proportions, and an elk is not far behind.
In contrast, the little white-tailed deer of eastern forests, Odocoileus virginianus, is only around 300 pounds and usually less, while his western cousin, the black-tail or mule deer, Odocoileus hemionus, can be as big as 450 pounds. Still, deer are much, much smaller than elk, and would never be confused the one for the other. They simply look different.
The elk has pointy antlers, whereas the moose has flattish shovel-looking antlers. Roughly the same size as a moose and combining aspects of both is the “recently” extinct Irish Elk, Megaloceros giganteus. That’s the one I’d’ve picked for the Elf-king’s mount.
You can tell the difference by the antlers: which kind were they?
…all eyes looked upon the ring; for he held it now aloft, and the green jewels gleamed there that the Noldor had devised in Valinor. For this ring was like to twin serpents, whose eyes were emeralds, and their heads met beneath a crown of golden flowers, that the one upheld and the other devoured; that was the badge of Finarfin and his house.The Silmarillion, pp 150-151 while Felagund laughs beneath the treesin Valinor and comes no more
to this grey world of tears and war.The Lays of Beleriand, p 311
(This post was edited by Finrod on Dec 10 2012, 6:39pm)
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