ghost moose
English
[edit]Noun
[edit]ghost moose (plural ghost moose)
- (Canada) Synonym of spirit moose (“a white moose”)
- 1905, Bret Harte, Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine, page 71:
- He is all white lak de moon on de watair. He come not often, oh, ver' seldom." "What !" cried I, "is he a ghost moose?" "Yaas, jes' so — a ghost moose."
- 1958, T.S. Denison, Hunting Adventures, page 123:
- In camp that evening the discussion turned to strategy for the campaign against the ghost moose. He was given to hanging out near the mouth of a sluggish stream which drained a big swamp far back in the spruce.
- 2006, Christopher Banks, The Cold Panes of Surfaces, page 49:
- Its massive head, shaggy and white, fell out of an old '78 Ford pickup, as my friends and I sat on our ten-speed bikes listening to the three Americans drinking Coca-Colas outside Sam's Place joke about how they shot the ghost moose coming out of a swamp south of Pickle Lake.
- 1996, Wayne Mergler, The last new land: stories of Alaska, past and present, page 419:
- "A rare ghost moose."
- A moose that has lost 80% or more of its fur from excessive grooming or rubbing due to parasites (particularly ticks), revealing pale skin underneath.
- 2012, Jerry C. Haigh, Of Moose and Men: A Wildlife Vet's Pursuit of the World's Largest Deer, →ISBN:
- Bill has made a movie of the so-called “ghost” moose that suffer from this condition. They are white and ghostly because the only hairs left over large parts of their bodies are the white remnant stubs of the original, long black and dark-brown coat.
- 1989, W.M. Samuel, “Locations of Moose in Northwestern Canada with Hair Loss Probably Caused by the Winter Tick, Dermacentor albipictus (Acari: Ixodidae)”, in Journal of Wildlife Diseases[1]:
- Figure 1. Sequence of premature loss of winter hair on moose infested with Dermacentor albipictus. A No loss. B slight loss; approximately 5 to 20% of winter hair lost or broken at or near skin level…E Ghost moose; over 80% lost or damaged.