The article says that it belonged to a species of deer called “wapiti”. Since I never heard of it, I looked it up and it’s just an elk. Why didn’t the article just say “elk” which is the much more common term?
- Elk is ambiguous. There's an Elk/Wapiti in North America, Central Asia, and East Asia, and another species of deer referred to as an "Elk" by people in Eurasia, but which is known as a "Moose" in North America.
- Because journalists these days don't have time to look these kinds of things up. The original paper only refers to it as wapiti/cervus canadensis/deer. If the whoever wrote that article knew it refers to an elk, they'd have pointed that out for the reader.