You may read of a Russian model and beauty contest winner dying in a collision between the Porsche she was riding in and an “elk.” Not that the species of the animal is especially important but we in North America can’t be sure what was referred to is what we call an elk, or perhaps it was what we call a moose.
The confusion exists because Europeans often call the largest member of the deer family an elk, when referring to our moose. The moose is larger but uglier while the elk or wapiti is elegant and intermediate in size between the moose and deer.
At least in North America moose tend to be somewhat solitary while elk do more herding behavior. And the two favor different pastures, with moose eating a lot of aquatic plants. As the spiritual would have it, our moose “wade in the water.”
