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A full grown African Elephant

The African Elephant is the world’s largest land mammal. Like the whale is to the sea, the elephant is to the land. There are two types of elephants alive today, the African Bush Elephant and the Asian Elephant. Some would argue that there is a third type of elephant, the African Forest Elephant. All of these elephants share several characteristics. First their most distinctive feature is their trunk.

An Elephants trunk hangs off its face like a nose, but is made of muscle and acts like an arm. The very end of the trunk can grip branches and other objects like a hand. The trunk is hollow and can suck up water to spray over itself like a hose; this multipurpose appendage can also be used to send signals to other elephants. The trunk is a very strong, yet nimble and precise tool, capable of pulling down trees, while at the same time selecting a single peanut off of a hand. The African Elephant, unlike the Asian Elephant, has two finger like vise grips at the end of its trunk, making it more precise and delicate than it’s cousin in Asia having just one of these fingers.

Like humans are right or left handed, an elephant is right or left tusked. You can tell which tusk is an elephants dominate because it is shorter and worn down from being used more. The African Forest Elephant has tusks that point down. The African Bush Elephant’s tusks arch upward more and are generally longer than that of the Forest Elephant. The Asian Elephant has no tusks at all. The purpose of the tusk to the African elephant is to mark trees, clear paths, and on occasion they are used defensively as weapons.

The Asian Elephant has a higher arching back, and fewer ribs than the African Elephants. The African Forest Elephant and the Asian Elephant are alike in that they both have four nails on each hind foot unlike the African Bush Elephant with just three.

The Asian Elephant is smaller than an African Bush Elephant yet generally bigger than the African Forest Elephant. The African Bush Elephant stands at heights of 13 feet +, the Asian Elephant is roughly a foot smaller at 12 feet, and the African Bush Elephant rarely exceeds 8 feet.

Elephants are very long lived, some surviving over 85 years. Through their lifespan, an elephant never forgets. Its’ true, the elephant has a remarkable memory, able to recognize paths it was on a child for its entire life.

Humans lose only one set of teeth in their lives. For an elephant, this is an ongoing process. Elephants will lose and re-grow teeth 5 or 6 times over the course of its life. Unlike human teeth that grow straight up, an elephants tooth starts growing in the back of its mouth and is pushed forward as it grows, pushing out the tooth that was in the front of its mouth.

The female elephant lives most of its life in a herd with older female elephants and the youngest elephants. The male elephants, at around age 13, leave the herd and live on their own. The Female herd is always lead by the oldest female, known as the matriarch. Sometimes male elephants will bond together forming temporary herds known as bachelor herds.

Male elephants will fight one another for dominance during mating season; only the strongest elephants will mate with the females. Generally the oldest elephants of the herd do the mating because they are the strongest. The Elephants will bash tusks and trunk wrestle until the weaker male backs off or is injured.

The elephant is considered one of the most intelligent species, attributable to its large brain. Elephants are thought to possess emotions. Emotions such as grief, artistic creation, playfulness, compassion, and self-awareness. An elephant is able to recognize itself apart from other elephants. Some theories exist that give testimony to the existence of “Elephant graveyards”. These graveyards are the place that elder elephants willingly and knowingly go at the end of their lives to die. It is also speculated that an elephants may be able to specifically recognize particular bones from a lost ancestor. As a way to grieve they go visit these bones. If true, this uncovers the true complexity of elephant emotion.

Elephants communicate through bellowing through their trunks, making a variety of sounds to convey different meanings. Elephants are also thought to posses a degree of sonar capabilities being able to feel the vibrations in the earth made by the stomping of other elephants’.

The elephant uses sunscreen. In a technique known as “wallowing”, an elephant stomps though muddy water. Coating itself in mud, the elephant is ready for the heat of the day with its makeshift sunscreen.

Elephants are an endangered species; they are hunted for both their ivory tusks and meat. As well as being hunted, often poached, the elephants of the world also face habitat loss as some of the watering holes and trails used by their ancestors no longer exist. Elephants are able to put up a fight though, being one of the most dangerous and aggressive species in the world. Elephants have regularly killed humans, sometimes even destroying entire villages. In 1998 a heard of elephants overran a village in India, locals say they saw the elephants drinking beer before the rampage. Elephant drunken violence is not an isolated incident. In 1999; reportedly drunken elephants ran through another village in India. In the most recent attack, in 2002, a herd of apparently drunk elephants ran through an Indian village again, killing six people. This lead the villagers to attack the elephants killing two hundred elephants.

Elephants are mysterious, with human like tendencies; elephants seem to have emotions that make them sometimes impulsive and often-in conflict with one another and humans. The elephant, whatever it’s thinking, demands respect as one of the most majestic beasts living today.

Sources:

http://www.outtoafrica.nl/animals/engelephant.html

Images:

http://www.itsnature.org/endangered/asian-elephant/

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/african-elephant/