INDIAN ELEPHANT -- AFRICAN ELEPHANT

AFRICAN ELEPHANT

The elephant is the largest living land animal. It weighs 6,5 tonnes and measures up to 3.3 meter tall.

A PREHISTORIC PYGMY ELEPHANT

The largest prehistoric elephant was the steppe mammoth. It was to be found all over the central Europe a million years ago. A skeleton found in Germany suggest a height of 4,5m. The prehistoric elephant which had straight tusks and lived in northern Germany about 300,000 years ago and had longer tusks than today's mammals. Its tusks measured on average 5m.

WOOLLY MAMMOT

A single woolly mammoth tusk which is to be found in the Franzens Museum in Brno, Slovakia. It measures 5,02m on the outside curve.

The heaviest single fossil tusk on record weighed 150kg.

ASIAN ELEPHANT

ASIAN ELEPHANT

ASIAN ELEPHANT FOR CELEBRATION

We have two species - The African elephant and the Asian elephant. They are of the family Elephantidae in the order Proboscidea. Within that are eleven species of hyraxes and the aardvark.

There are two types of African elephants. The Bush elephant and the forests elephant. The forest elephant is smaller, the ears are rounder and the task is thinner as well as turns inwards. This helps to move through the thick vegetation. Although they are moving in a group, they are very hard or almost impossible to spot because of the density of the forest. Sometimes they come into a clearing for a drink or a wallowing in the mud. They have been seen to dig up mud with their tusks and drink the brew. It is assumed that this is to get certain minerals.

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The tusks of an elephant start growing when it is two years old. From there on the tusk is growing continuously. Wild African elephants can live to an age of 60 years. A fully grown elephant's tusks can weigh up to 60kg and a cow's tusk only 9kg. Very old elephants used to have tusks of 3m long but nowadays are very seldom because of the ivory poachers.

Ivory is a mixture of dentine, cartilaginous tissue and calcium salts. These tusks are used to strip bark off trees, dig for roots and minerals. They also used for a display of superiority or as a weapon.

Elephants are herbivores and can crush coarse vegetation in large quantities. To do this they have a huge head, powerful chewing muscles and big, strong teeth. Although, they have only four teeth, they are like massive millstones of ivory, grinding it into a pulp before swallowing. To support the trunk and these great, heavy teeth, the elephant has a large head. The skull itself is very light and has a honeycomb with air cells and cavities.

The trunk enables the elephants to pick food from the ground or the trees. Although, very muscular and powerful it is also very sensitive. It can rip out trees and branches and yet flexible enough to plug individual fruits, leaves and shoots. It is sensitive to smell and is used to investigate new objects. When meeting other elephants it is used to touch and greet them.

The elephants have tree trunk legs and unusual, beefy feet with broad footpads and large nails. The bones are spread out and have a broad bed of elastic, spongy tissue and a flat circular sole. These pads spread the huge weight and give a silent move in the forest and on open ground very little track. It ambles along at a speed of 5km/h.  It puts both right feet forward and then both left feet. It can run or charge at 40km/h

The large ears have several functions apart from hearing. They can be fanned out to show threat or using it as fans to cool themselves

A herd of elephants consists of females and calves of various ages. Each herd has an old female which leads the group. It is related to all the females in the herd. She is called the matriarch. She might be past breeding age but has great knowledge and experience. She knows their territory and leads them to waterhole and seasonal food. They have a strong bond within the family and have a complex society. They also help out with guiding and guarding young ones. At birth it weighs 120kg and by the time it is six it weighs 1000kg.

The females stay in the herd all their lives but the bulls leave when they are adults. Bulls live a solitary live or sometimes live in small groups with other bulls. They don't bond with the female.

Maturity is reached at about 10-12 years of age. The forest elephant matures earlier. Birth can be given at any time but mostly in the rainy season when food is plenty. Females in heat give a trumpet call and bulls travel far to check up on the female.

Bush elephants seek shelter in bushes or trees. Sometimes, they sleep for short while lying on their sides. They can't do this for long otherwise their internal organ suffers. They mostly sleep standing up. Forest elephants feed from early evening and through the night.

They can eat a wide variety like fruits, leaves, shoots, buds, twigs, branches, bark, roots and tubers. Also they raid crops. Plantations of bananas, mangoes, sweet potatoes and sugar cane. They eat up to 225kg a day. Some of the food is hardly digested and therefore it needs a great amount of food to get its nourishment. An elephant drinks every day. It sucks water up with its drunk and squirts it into its mouth. It can drink 100-300 litres. It also uses the water to squirt it over itself.

There are four Asian subspecies which are the Indian, Malaysian, Ceylon and Sumatran elephant. They are only living in the forests and of smaller size. They move through the forests in single file and on well trotten path. They can travel long distances to find food. Asian elephants don't grow tusk but for 10% of the Ceylon bull elephants. They also have smaller ears and have two small tomes on top of their head. The trunk has only one lip at the end.

Elephants were once used for warfare but even nowadays they are still important animals in Asia. The mahout looks after its elephant because he appreciates its good nature, intelligence, strength and memory. They are priceless in rough terrain and road less, thick forests. A lot of them work in timber forests where machinery is useless. They are also used for ceremonies. People breed elephants in captivity but still round the wild elephants in a dangerous drive. Well respected elephant cowboys will train them.

In a remote area of Nepal, giant elephants have been seen. It is assumed that they are especially large animals of the Asian species.