No no, you don’t understand, moose really do get that big. Take it from a Canadian. I’ve seen that bullshit in person. Scary as all heck.
And that’s how people can die if they hit a moose. Seriously, one of our fears when driving in the country is having to deal with this scenario of a moose jumping out in front of the car.
moose are actual legit ice age megafauna; theyve been here since the ice age, they are old as fuck. they also are pretty terrifying and ive echoed this before but i went to wiki and “In terms of raw numbers, they attack more people than bears and wolves combined” and “ In the Americas, moose injure more people than any other wild mammal and, worldwide, only hippopotamuses injure more.”
like, fuck off with that
I was dog sitting a dog once who insisted she had to go out in the middle of the night it was an emergency, so I took her out. Suddenly she starts pointing and barking and I look up and can just make out the outline of a HUGE moose. I’ve been accidentally face to face with a black bear and that scared me less than being up close with a moose. I’m 5 foot so imagine staring up at an animal several feet taller than you that is debating charging the dog who’s leash you are holding. I was terrified as I grabbed the dog by her collar to get better control over her and backed up slowly til I was out of line of sight and bolted for the house at a dead run. Did you know most Canadian lake monster stories come from people seeing moose swimming? They are massive animals.
They are massive and they charge. I get so scared when tourists are all “oh yeah, we got out of the car to get a closer look and, ya’ll have some mighty impressive animals around here.”
Yes, yes we do, and they have mighty tired guardian angels because moose can, and do, charge at people.
Someone my mom worked with died hitting a moose on the highway. Their eyes don’t reflect light. In the dark they are literally nothing but a big slightly darker shape in the night.
Roughly every year in the town I grew up in, a cow (moose) and her calf will wander through downtown. Maybe once or twice. If she’s aggressive enough, the local Mounties will escort her through to keep idiots away.
I’ve definitely talked with people who thought moose were deer-sized or maybe horse-sized and I was like NO YOU DON’T EVEN UNDERSTAND MOOSE ARE TERRIFYING
Moose are terrifying, you guys.
I finally live on a province where moose and deer exist.
I do not drive at night in fear of meeting one. If you hit a moose going 90 on a highway, not only is your car trashed, you are probably trashed. I’ve seen cars that got wrecked and there seems to be a consensus that at least half the time, the giant fucking beastie just shakes itself off and continues gallumphing along the countryside.
If you fucking hit a moose with your car and their legs go through your windshield, congratulations, you are dead. Massive hooves kicking you to death? Yeah.
Moose are fucking terrifying. Bull moose won’t fuck with you too much unless you fuck with them, but the time a bull moose casually swaggered his way past 7 year old me when I was sledding literally put me off winter sports for a solid month.
Momma moose and their babies, though? I legitimately had to call in to work to be like “ey yo there is a moose in my driveway and I can’t get out” AND MY MANAGERS UNDERSTOOD.
Moose. MOOSE.
I have to admit I thought they were like a Canadian deer before this.
The commenter above who claims that moose’s eyes don’t reflect light is only partially correct; if you shine a flashlight in a moose’s eyes it will glow like a cat (and then you will probably get killed to death by an annoyed moose) but the reason they are so dangerous to cars at nights is that they are too tall for the headlights to reach. Think about that.
Moose confirmed for actual kaiju.
Kaiju category: Maple.
Now I kinda want a kaiju movie set in Canada where it’s just a moose. Like a regular moose but more aggressive.
For scale, a female african elephant is 7.2-8.5 feet at the shoulder, according to Wikipedia. A moose is
4.6 – 6.9 ft. at the shoulder. So instead of thinking “This animal is a bit bigger than a deer” you can think “This animal is barely smaller than an elephant”
And they can run up to 40 miles per hour
A 16 wheeler with fur
this post is so long but just have to, I live in michigan (canada lite) and we were out at like some famous Mission in the woods up north. We hear a sound that we slowly start to assume is a Moose and my DAD STARS WALKING TOWARDS IT TO SEE. MY MOM HAVING GOOD SENSE AND BEING A DECENT GOD FEARING ADULT WAS LIKE “JOE, DON’T GO LOOK. JOE MOSE CHARGE. JOE!!!!!”
Dad comes back a minute later laughing his ass off cause what we’d been hearing were cars hitting the RUMBLE STRIPS ON THE HIGHWAY CLOSE TO THE OLD MISSION.
So two things we call rumble strips moose strips now
and my dad doesn’t HAVE ENOUGH SENSE TO KNOW MOOSE ARE DEATH CREATURES
its weird to think horses were ever ‘prey animals’ because what fucking predator looks at a 8 foot tall ENORMOUS beast with pitch black devils eyes, terrifying teeth and extremely powerful legs and think ‘yeah lets go attack that one’
well moose are still prey animals so
thats fucked up, a moose is like a horse with extra weapons
sometimes canadian stereotypes irritate me but then i remember that a moose walked into a grocery store in british columbia and had to be lured out with an apple
…No, a car can hit a cow and people can live, though the cow may need to be put out of its misery.
A semi-rig can hit a moose and the moose will shake its head, confused, before going back into the woods. In the meantime, the semi-rig is a flaming totalled wreckage on the side of the interstate.
Moral of the story: You do not want to hit a moose with any vehicle, ever, unless you are hitting a moose with the Death Star.
I really want a science fiction story where aliens come to invade earth and effortlessly wipe out humanity, only to be fought off by the wildlife.
They were expecting military resistance. They weren’t counting on bears.
Imagine coming to a hostile alien world and being attacked by a horde of creatures that can weigh up to 3 tons, run at 30 km/h (19 mph), and bite with a force of 8,100 newtons (1,800 lbf).
By the time you realise that they can traverse water, it’s too late. The surviving members of your unit manage to make it back by shedding their excess gear and running for their lives; the slower ones were crushed to death within minutes.
You later describe the creature to one of the humans you captured, wanting to know the name of the monstrosity that will haunt your nightmares for cycles to come.
The human smiles as it speaks a single word, slowly and distinctly, in its barbaric tongue.
“Hippopotamus.”
This is giving me the biggest, creepiest grin I might have ever grinned
Imagine being the next crew to go down to earth and thinking “it’s fine, we got this. We have the weapons and equipment necessary to deal with bears and *shudders* hippopotamuses. We’ll be fine.”
And at first you are, you’ve learned how to dodge. You’ve learned where their territories are. You know how to defend yourself.
But then one night you are sleeping in your shelter. You’re in a tree covered temperate part of earth. It seems benign. There are been no sightings of the dreaded “hippos” around. Not even any bears. But there is a slight rustle of the undergrowth. You try and ignore it telling yourself it is just the wind.
Then you hear the rustle again. closer this time.
You peer out into the darkness but see nothing amongst the trees.
The rustle again and now you realise you can smell something. It’s musky and slightly foul. It’s the smell of an omen, a warning. But what of? Where is this smell coming from.
You sit up, but it’s too late. The foul smelling creature is on you. You are hit with 17kg of coarse fur and vicious bites. Long dark claws tear in to you and you are pinned down white the striped creature tries to bite your throat.
It takes some doing but you manage to wrestle free. Blood drips from your wounds and already they itch with the sign of infection. The creature has a bloodied snout, rust rad, mingling with the black and white hairs. It lets out a terrifying growl from the back of its throat and looks to attack again. It’s between you and your knife, so your only choice is to back away.
Eventually the creature gives up and snuffles off in to the undergrowth, down a hole near your shelter you hadn’t noticed before.
When you make it back to your base you once again consult the captive human.
“Badger.” they say, with a solemn nod.
One word: Moose
“Our vehicles are far superior to the local human models, in range, speed, armament, and any other metric you care to name! Nothing could possibly-”
BAMrumblerumblethumpcrash!!!
“That’s called a moose.”
“We have determined that there is no life in the water that is larger than we are. Future assaults will spend as little time on land as possible.”
Two days later, you return missing your boat and half your team.
“So what was it this time? Multiple rows of sharp teeth? Or so big it just smashed the boat?” Your human asks. You’re starting to think that if they can survive on this planet they must be better fighters than their lack of claws or hide imply.
“One row of teeth. Black and white. Ate my buddy whole.”
“Ooh, killer whale!”
The desert recon team returns two days late, covered in dirt, and missing half their members.
Emotions are a sign of mental breakdown, and all of the survivors are terrified. You manage to get the story out of them slowly, brokenly.
They’d been traveling according to regs, close line formation, nothing on the sensors. It was just the desert, right? Small animals, nothing more than knee-high. There simply wasn’t enough water or vegetation to support larger life.
And then the medic had disappeared. They’d found signs of a brief struggle, but then ze had simply vanished.
They found zir corpse two hours later, hanging in a sage tree. Zir abdomen had been sliced open, and the corpse dangled in mute warning.
They still had seen nothing on the sensors.
They had pressed on until the third disappearance. Some of the bodies, they’d found. Some of them were complete mysteries, vanished into the desert. One of the survivors claimed to have seen a pair of glowing golden eyes.
“Sounds like a cougar,” your human says. “Or maybe a puma. Could have been a painter or a catamount, too. …or a mountain lion.”
“Have you considered that you might just be too delicious to conquer the earth?” the human asks, baring zir teeth.
You hadn’t noticed how sharp zir teeth were before, or the little stubby fangs tucked away in the corners of zir mouth. A chill runs up your back and you feel a hint of a strange terror…
Steel Phoenix Studios 