A large mammal of family Elephantidae; the only living members of order Proboscidea (many extinct forms); almost naked grey skin; massive forehead; small eyes; upper incisor teeth form tusks; snout elongated as a muscular grasping trunk; ears large and movable (used to radiate heat). There are two living species. The African elephant is the largest living land animal (height up to 3·8 m/12½ ft), with three subspecies: the savanna (or bush elephant), Cape elephant, and forest elephant (Loxodonta africana). The Asian elephant has four subspecies: Indian elephant, Ceylon elephant, Sumatran elephant, and Malaysian elephant (Elephas maximus). The African is larger, with larger ears, a triangular lip on the top and bottom of the trunk tip (not just on the top), and obvious tusks in the female.
| iElephant | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
African Bush (Savannah) Elephant in Kenya. |
||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Genera and Species | ||||||||||||
| Loxodonta Loxodonta cyclotis Loxodonta africana Elephas Elephas maximus Elephas antiquus † Elephas beyeri † Elephas celebensis † Elephas cypriotes † Elephas ekorensis † Elephas falconeri † Elephas iolensis † Elephas planifrons † Elephas platycephalus † Elephas recki † Stegodon † Mammuthus † |
Elephantidae (the elephants) is a family of pachyderm, and the only remaining family in the order Proboscidea in the class Mammalia. Elephantidae has three living species: the African Bush Elephant, the African Forest Elephant (until recently known collectively as the African Elephant), and the Asian Elephant (also known as the Indian Elephant).
Elephants are mammals, and the largest land animals alive today. The elephant's gestation period is 22 months, the longest of any land animal. At birth it is common for an elephant calf to weigh 120 kg (265 lb). An elephant may live as long as 70 years, sometimes longer. The smallest elephants, about the size of a calf or a large pig, were a prehistoric variant that lived on the island of Crete until 5000 BC, possibly 3000 BC.
Elephants are increasingly threatened by human intrusion, with the African elephant population plummeting from 1.3 million in 1970 to roughly 600,000 in 1989, to 272,000 in 2000 and then to between 400,000 and 660,000 in 2003. The elephant is now a protected species worldwide, placing restrictions on capture, domestic use, and trade in products such as ivory.
Zoology
Varieties
It has long been known that the African and Asian elephants are separate species. African elephants tend to be larger than the Asian species (up to 4 m high and 7500 kg) and have bigger ears. Male and female African elephants have long tusks, while male and female Asian Elephants have shorter tusks, with tusks in females being almost non-existent. African elephants have a dipped back, smooth forehead and two "fingers" at the tip of their trunks, as compared with the Asian species which have an arched back, two humps on the forehead and have only one "finger" at the tip of their trunks.
There are two populations of African elephants, Savannah and Forest, and recent genetic studies have led to a reclassification of these as separate species, the forest population now being called Loxodonta cyclotis, and the Savannah (or Bush) population termed Loxodonta africana. There is also a potential danger in that if the forest elephant is not explicitly listed as an endangered species, poachers and smugglers might thus be able to evade the law forbidding trade in endangered animals and their body parts.
The Forest elephant and the Savannah elephant can hybridise successfully, though their preference for different terrains reduces the opportunities to hybridise. Many captive African elephants are probably generic African elephants as the recognition of separate species has occurred relatively recently.
Although hybrids between different animal genera are usually impossible, in 1978 at Chester Zoo, an Asian elephant cow gave birth to a hybrid calf sired by an African elephant bull (the old terms are used here as this pre-dates current classifications). "Motty", the resulting hybrid male calf, had an African elephant's cheek, ears (large with pointed lobes) and legs (longer and slimmer), but the toenail numbers, (5 front, 4 hind) and the single trunk finger of an Asian elephant. The wrinkled trunk was like an African elephant.
African Elephant
The mammals of the genus Loxodonta, often known collectively as African elephants, are found in several regions throughout the continent, after which they are named. Today there are approximately 600,000 African elephants in the world. Others argue that while elephants are locally overabundant in certain areas, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the overall population has dropped by a staggering amount. As recently as 1979 there were an estimated 1.3 million African elephants.
Yet, the total African elephant population appears to have been more or less stable for more than a decade (despite being down tenfold from a half century ago). Some regions of Africa are dealing with local elephant overpopulations, while most regions are not. When reporting 2002 estimates of 460,000 (probable) to 560,000 (possible) African elephants, researchers noted that this represented an increase over their 1998 figures (360,000 probable, 500,000 possible) suggestive of modest population growth. However, this apparent increase could have been an artifact of the much larger area represented in the 2002 survey – or "many other factors unrelated to overall elephant numbers" (From IUCN's African Elephant Status Report 2002, page 17: http://iucn.org/themes/ssc/sgs/afesg/aed/pdfs/aesr2002.pdf). The papers presented in Pachyderm magazine (journal of the African Elephant, African Rhino and Asian Rhino Specialist Groups) through June 2006 do not give any indication of a recent boom in elephant population . A "comprehensive African Elephant Status Report (AESR) is … expected to be published some time in 2006" based on their current data.
African elephants are distinguished from Asians in several ways. The African elephant is typically larger than the Asian and has a concave back.
Until the late 20th century, scientists recognized one species of African elephants, Loxodonta africana, and two subspecies, or races, within the species.
Today, Loxodonta africana refers specifically to the Savanna Elephant, the largest of all the elephants.
The other, less numerous species is the Forest Elephant, recently reclassified as Loxodonta cyclotis. Compared with the Savanna Elephant, its ears are usually smaller and rounder, and its tusks are also thinner and straighter and are not directed outwards so much. The Forest Elephant can weigh up to 10,000 lb (4,500 kg) and stand about 10 ft (3 m) tall. Normally they inhabit the dense African rain forests of central and western Africa, though occasionally they do inhabit the edges of forests and overlap territories with bush elephants.
Asian Elephant
Today scientists estimate the world population of Asian elephants, also called Indian Elephants or Elephas maximus, to be approximately 40,000, less than one-tenth the number of African elephants. In general, the Asian elephant is smaller than the African. An Asian elephant can also be distinguished by the large bulges of depigmentation on the skin.
The first subspecies is the Sri Lankan Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus maximus). There is an Orphanage for elephants in Pinnawala Sri Lanka, which gives shelter to disabled, injured elephants. This program plays a large role in protecting the Sri Lankan Elephant from extinction.
Another subspecies, the Mainland Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus indicus) makes up the bulk of the Asian elephant population. Numbering approximately 36,000, these elephants are lighter gray in colour, with depigmentation only on the ears and trunk.
The smallest of all the elephants is the Sumatran Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus). Named the Borneo pygmy elephant, it is smaller and tamer than other Asian elephants.
Body characteristics
Trunk
The proboscis, or trunk, is a fusion of the nose and upper lip, elongated and specialized to become the elephant's most important and versatile appendage. African elephants are equipped with two fingerlike projections at the tip of their trunk, while Asians have only one. According to biologists, the elephant's trunk is said to have over forty thousand individual muscles in it, making it sensitive enough to pick up a single blade of grass, yet strong enough to rip the branches off a tree. Some sources indicate that the correct number of muscles in an elephant's trunk is nearer to one hundred thousand.
Most herbivores (plant eaters, like the elephant) are adapted with teeth for cutting and tearing off plant materials. However, except for the very young or infirm, elephants always use their trunks to tear up their food and then place it in their mouth. If the desired food item is too high up, the elephant will wrap its trunk around the tree or branch and shake its food loose or sometimes simply knock the tree down altogether. Elephants suck water up into the trunk (up to fifteen quarts [14.2 liters] at a time) and then blow it into their mouth. Elephants also inhale water to spray on their body during bathing. Familiar elephants will greet each other by entwining their trunks, much like a handshake. Elephants can defend themselves very well by flailing their trunk at unwanted intruders or by grasping and flinging them.
An elephant also relies on its trunk for its highly developed sense of smell.
Tusks
The tusks of an elephant are its second upper incisors. Tusks are indispensable to an elephant: they are used to dig for water, salt, and roots;
Like humans who are typically right- or left-handed, elephants are usually right- or left-tusked. Both male and female African elephants have large tusks that can reach over 10 ft (3 m) in length and weigh over 200 lb (90 kg). The desire for elephant ivory has been one of the major factors in the dramatic decline of the world's elephant population.
Some extinct relatives of elephants had tusks in their lower jaws also (e.g.
Unlike most mammals, which grow baby teeth and then replace them with a permanent set of adult teeth, elephants have cycles of tooth rotation throughout their entire life. After one year the tusks are permanent, but the other teeth are replaced five times in an elephant's life. When an elephant becomes very old, the last set of teeth is worn to stumps, and it must rely on softer foods to chew. Very elderly elephants often spend their last years exclusively in marshy areas where they can feed on soft wet grasses. Eventually, when the last teeth fall out, the elephant will be unable to eat and will die of starvation. These grew out large in Dinotherium and some mastodons, but in modern elephants they disappear early without erupting.
Skin
Elephants are called pachyderms, which means thick-skinned animals. An elephant's skin is extremely tough around most parts of its body and measures about 2.5 cm (1 in) thick.
The species of elephants are typically grayish in colour, but the Africans very often appear brown or reddish from wallowing in mud holes of coloured soil. After bathing, the elephant will usually use its trunk to blow dirt on its body to help dry and bake on its new protective coat. As elephants are limited to smaller and smaller areas, there is less water available, and local herds will often come too close over the right to use these limited resources. Elephants spend every day fighting an uphill battle to stay cool. The ratio of an elephant's mass to the surface area of its skin is many times that of a human. Elephants have even been observed lifting up their legs to expose the soles of their feet, presumably in an effort to expose more skin to the air. Since wild elephants live in very hot climates, they must have other means of getting rid of excess heat.
Legs and Feet
An elephant's legs are great straight pillars, as they must be to support its bulk. The elephant needs less muscular power to stand because of its straight legs. For this reason an elephant can stand for very long periods of time without tiring. In fact, African elephants rarely lie down unless they are sick or wounded. Elephants are the only mammals to have four knees, most others either have two knees and two elbows, though the knees are often found in the front legs, or they have four elbows, like cats or dogs.
The feet of an elephant are nearly round. African elephants have three nails on each hind foot, and four on each front foot. Indian elephants have four nails on each hind foot and five on each front foot. Under the elephant's weight the foot swells, but it gets smaller when the weight is removed. An elephant can sink deep into mud, but can pull its legs out readily because its feet become smaller when they are lifted.
An elephant is a good swimmer and climber, but it can neither trot, run, jump, nor gallop. There are few animals that can travel farther in a day then the elephant.
Ears
The large flapping ears of an elephant are also very important for temperature regulation. Elephant ears are made of a very thin layer of skin stretched over cartilage and a rich network of blood vessels. On hot days, elephants will flap their ears constantly, creating a slight breeze. Differences in the ear sizes of African and Asian elephants can be explained, in part, by their geographical distribution. If an elephant wants to intimidate a predator or rival, it will spread its ears out wide to make itself look more massive and imposing. Joyce Poole, a well-known elephant researcher, has theorized that the males will fan their ears in an effort to help propel this "elephant cologne" great distances.
Walking at a normal pace an elephant covers about 2 to 4 miles an hour (3 to 6 km/h) but they can reach 24 miles an hour (40 km/h) at full speed.
Evolution
Although the fossil evidence is uncertain, some scientists believe there is genetic evidence that the elephant family shares distant ancestry with the Sirenians (sea cows) and the hyraxes. Modern elephants have retained this ability and are known to swim in that manner for up to 6 hours and 50 km.
In the past, there was a much wider variety of elephant genera, including the mammoths, stegodons and deinotheria.
Diet
Elephants are herbivores, spending 16 hours a day collecting plant food. An adult elephant can consume 300–600 lb (140–270 kg) of food a day. 60% of that food leaves the elephant's body undigested.
Social behavior
Elephants live in a very structured social order. The social lives of male and female elephants are very different.
The social circle of the female elephant does not end with the small family unit.
Self-awareness
From a study reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an Asian elephant housed at the Bronx Zoo in New York, repeatedly touched a white cross painted above its eye, when it saw this mark reflected in a large mirror. Elephants are among the very small number of species such as the great apes and Bottlenose Dolphins capable of self-recognition.
Communication
It has been discovered that elephants can communicate over long distances by producing and receiving low frequency infrasound, a sub-sonic rumbling which can travel through the ground farther than sound travels in the air. This can be felt by the sensitive skin of an elephant's feet and trunk, which pick up the resonant vibrations in much the same way as the flat skin on the head of a drum. Discovery of this new aspect of elephant social communication and perception is due to breakthroughs in audio technology, which can pick up frequencies outside the range of the human ear. Pioneering research in elephant infrasound communication was done by Katy Payne of the Elephant Listening Project, and is detailed in her book Silent Thunder. Though this research is still in its infancy, it is helping to solve many prior mysteries such as how elephants can find distant potential mates, and how social groups are able to coordinate their movements over an extensive territory range. An elephant's gestation (pregnancy) period lasts about 22 months (630-660 days), the longest gestation period of any mammal, after which one calf typically is born. In the wild, the mother is accompanied by other adult females (aunts) that protect the young, and baby elephants are raised and nurtured by the whole family group, practically from the moment they are born. Unlike most mammals, female elephants have a single pair of mammary glands located just behind the front legs. For example, a calf learns how to use its trunk by watching older elephants using their trunks.
Elephant calves
Elephant social life, in many ways, revolves around breeding and raising of the calves. Today, however, the pressures humans have put on the wild elephant populations, from poaching to habitat destruction, mean that the elderly often die at a younger age, leaving fewer teachers for the young.
Usefulness to the environment
Elephants' foraging activities help to maintain the areas in which they live:
By pulling down trees to eat leaves, breaking branches, and pulling out roots they create clearings in which new young trees and other vegetation grow to provide future nutrition for elephants and other organisms. Elephants make pathways through the environment that are used by other animals to access areas normally out of reach. The pathways have been used by several generations of elephants, and today people are converting many of them to paved roads. During the dry season elephants use their tusks to dig into dry river beds to reach underground sources of water. Elephants are a species which many other organisms depend on. For example, termites eat elephant feces and often begin building termite mounds under piles of elephant feces.Threat of extinction
The threat to the African elephant presented by the ivory trade is unique to the species. These conflicts kill 150 elephants and up to 100 people per year in Sri Lanka. Lacking the massive tusks of its African cousins, the Asian elephant's demise can be attributed mostly to loss of its habitat. Elephants need massive tracts of land because, much like the slash-and-burn farmers, they are used to crashing through the forest, tearing down trees and shrubs for food and then cycling back later on, when the area has regrown. As forests are reduced to small pockets, elephants become part of the problem, quickly destroying all the vegetation in an area, eliminating all their resources.
Larger, long-lived, slow-breeding animals, like the elephant, are more susceptible to overhunting than other animals. They cannot hide, and it takes many years for an elephant to grow and reproduce. An elephant needs an average of 300 lb (140 kg) of vegetation a day to survive. As large predators are hunted, the local small grazer populations (the elephant's food competitors) find themselves on the rise.
However, despite all the fears of extinction, some scholars allege that the elephant population of Africa as a whole has actually increased over the past ten years, most notably in Botswana, which currently is experiencing elephant overpopulation. Some animals died as a result, while some, like the elephants, just trampled through the fences. When confined to small territories, elephants can inflict an enormous amount of damage to the local landscapes. As scientists learn more about nature and the environment, it becomes very clear that these parks may be the elephant's last hope against the rapidly changing world around them.
Additionally, Kruger National Park has suffered from elephant overcrowding, at the expense of other species of wildlife within the reserve. Without action, it is predicted that the elephant population in Kruger National Park will triple to 34,000 by 2020.
Humanity and elephants
Harvest from the wild
The harvest of elephants, both legal and illegal, has had some unexpected consequences on elephant anatomy as well. African ivory hunters, by killing only tusked elephants, have given a much larger chance of mating to elephants with small tusks or no tusks at all. The propagation of the absent-tusk gene has resulted in the birth of large numbers of tuskless elephants, now approaching 30% in some populations (compare with a rate of about 1% in 1930).
It is possible, if unlikely, that continued selection pressure could bring about a complete absence of tusks in African elephants, a development normally requiring thousands of years of evolution. The effect of tuskless elephants on the environment, and on the elephants themselves, could be dramatic. Elephants use their tusks to root around in the ground for necessary minerals, tear apart vegetation, and spar with one another for mating rights. Without tusks, elephant behavior could change dramatically.
Domestication and use
Elephants have been working animals used in various capacities by humans. However, elephants have never been truly domesticated: the male elephant in his periodic condition of musth is dangerous and difficult to control. Therefore elephants used by humans have typically been female, war elephants being an exception, however: as female elephants in battle will run from a male, only males could be used in war. It is generally more economical to capture wild young elephants and tame them than breeding them in captivity (see also elephant "crushing").
War elephants were used by armies in the Indian sub-continent, and later by the Persian empire. The Carthaginian general Hannibal took elephants across the Alps when he was fighting the Romans, but brought too few elephants to be of much military use, although his horse cavalry was quite successful; he probably used a now-extinct third African (sub)species, the North African (Forest) elephant, smaller than its two southern cousins, and presumably easier to domesticate. A large elephant in full charge could cause tremendous damage to infantry, and cavalry horses would be afraid of them (see Battle of Hydaspes).
Throughout Siam, India, and most of South Asia elephants were used in the military for heavy labor, especially for uprooting trees and moving logs, and were also commonly used as executioners to crush the condemned underfoot.
Elephants have also been used as mounts for safari-type hunting, especially Indian shikar (mainly on tigers), and as ceremonial mounts for royal and religious occasions, whilst Asian elephants have been used for transport and entertainment, and are common to circuses around the world.
African elephants have long been reputed to not be domesticable, but some entrepreneurs have succeeded by bringing Asian mahouts from Sri Lanka to Africa. In Botswana, Uttum Corea has been working with African elephants and has several young tame elephants near Gaborone. African elephants are more temperamental than Asian elephants, but are easier to train. Because of their more sensitive temperaments, they require different training methods than Asian elephants and must be trained from infancy hence Corea worked with orphaned elephants. African elephants are now being used for (photo) safaris. Corea's elephants are also used to entertain tourists and haul logs.
Elephants are also commonly exhibited in zoos and wild animal parks, the former of which has caused controversy. Animal rights advocates allege that elephants in zoos "suffer a life of chronic physical ailments, social deprivation, emotional starvation, and premature death". However, zoos argue that standards for treatment of elephants are extremely high and that minimum requirements for such things as minimum space requirements, enclosure design, nutrition, reproduction, enrichment and veterinary care are set to ensure the wellbeing of elephants in captivity.
Elephant traps
Another more effective method is practiced in the Indian Subcontinent which is far less physical and brutal, and more psychological. The young elephant tries his hardest to escape, he pulls and wriggles and jumps and crawls yet the rope just tightens and to the tree it remains tied. A couple of years pass and the elephant is now an adult weighing several tons. Yet the trainer continues to tie the elephant to the tree with the same rope he’s always used, for the simple reason that the elephant has the concept in his mind that the rope is stronger than him.
Elephants in culture
George Orwell wrote a famous essay entitled "Shooting an Elephant," chronicling a 1926 episode of being forced to shoot an elephant while he served as an Imperial Policeman in Burma.Pop culture
Jumbo, a circus elephant, has entered the English language as a synonym for "large". The French children's storybook character Babar the Elephant (an elephant king) created by Jean de Brunhoff and also an animated TV series. The story of picking the mascot was started when New York Giants' manager John McGraw told reporters that Philadelphia manufacturer Benjamin Shibe, who owned the controlling interest in the new team, had a “white elephant on his hands," Connie Mack defiantly adopted the white elephant as the team mascot, though over the years the elephant has appeared in several different colors (currently forest green). The A’s are sometimes, though infrequently, referred to as the Elephants or White Elephants. The Thai Elephant Orchestra, a musical instrument playing group of Elephants from the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang. The fictional planet in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels consists of a flat disc-shaped world carried on the backs of four elephants who ride through space on a space turtle, Great A'Tuin. The family eventually give up the elephant after it proves too expensive to feed.Religion and philosophy
The scattered skulls of prehistoric pygmy elephants on Crete, featuring a single large nasal cavity at the front, may have formed the basis of belief in existence of cyclops, the one-eyed giants featured in Homer's Odyssey. Elephants are used in festivals in Sri Lanka, such as the Esala Perahera. Temple elephant Guruvayur Keshavan famous temple elephant in Kerala, India The story of the Blind Men and an Elephant was written to show how reality may be viewed by different perspectives. In Judeo-Christian accounts, including Midrash on the sixth chapter of the apocryphal book of 1 Maccabees, the youngest of the Hasmonean brothers, Eleazar the Maccabee stuck a spear under the foot of an elephant carrying an important Greek-Assyrian general, killing the elephant, the general, and Eleazar.Politics and secular symbolism
After Alexander's victory over the Indian king Porus, the captured war elephants became a symbol of imperial power, used as an emblem of the Seleucid diadoch empire, e.g. The elephant, and the white elephant (also a religious symbol of Buddha) in particular, has often been used as a symbol of royal power and prestige in Asia; occurring on the flag of the kingdom Laos (three visible, supporting an umbrella, another symbol of royal power) till it became a republic in 1975, and other Indochinese and Thai realms had also displayed one or more white elephants. The elephant is also the symbol for the Republican Party of the United States, originating in an 1874 cartoon of an Asian elephant by Thomas Nast of Harper's Weekly (Nast also originated the donkey as the symbol of the Democratic Party).Elephant rage
Musth
Adult male elephants naturally enter the periodic state called musth (Hindi for madness), sometimes spelt "must" in English. A musth elephant, wild or domesticated, is extremely dangerous to humans. Domesticated elephants in India are traditionally tied to a tree and denied food and water for several days, after which the musth passes. In zoos, musth is often the cause of fatal accidents to elephant keepers. Zoos keeping adult male elephants need extremely secure enclosures, which greatly complicates the attempts to breed elephants in zoos. Testosterone levels in an elephant in musth can be as much as 60 times greater than in the same elephant at other times. However, whether this hormonal surge is the sole cause of musth, or merely a contributing factor is unknown: scientific investigation of musth is greatly hindered by the fact that even the most otherwise placid of elephants may actively try to kill any and all humans.
Although it has often been speculated that musth is linked to rut, this is unlikely, because the female elephant's estrus cycle is not seasonally-linked. Furthermore, bulls in musth have often been known to attack female elephants, regardless of whether or not the females are in heat.
The Channel 5 British television program "The Dark Side of Elephants" (20 March 2006) stated that during musth:
The swelling of the temporal glands presses on the elephant's eyes and causes the elephant severe pain like severe root abscess toothache. One elephant behaviour that tries to counteract this is digging the tusks in the ground. The musth secretion, which naturally runs down into the elephant's mouth, is full of ketones and aldehydes and (to a person at least) tastes unbelievably foul.Other causes
At least a few elephants have been suspected to be drunk during their attacks. In December 1998, a herd of elephants overran a village in India. Although locals reported that nearby elephants had recently been observed drinking beer which rendered them "unpredictable", officials considered it the least likely explanation for the attack. Purportedly drunk elephants raided yet another Indian village again on December 2002, killing six people, which lead to slaughter of about 200 elephants by locals.
Rogue elephant
Rogue elephant is a term for a lone, violently aggressive wild elephant, separated from the rest of the herd.
User Comments Add a comment…