Elephant

Elephants larger image Scientific classification Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Order: Proboscidea Family: Elephantidae Species  Loxodonta africana  Loxodonta cyclotis  Elephas maximus

Elephants are the largest living land mammals. At birth it is common for an elephant calf to weigh 100 kg (225 pounds). It takes 20 to 22 months for a baby elephant to develop, the longest gestation period of any land animal. The largest elephant ever recorded was a male shot in Angola in 1974, that weighed 12 tonnes (13.5 tons).

An elephant's most obvious characteristic is the trunk, a much elongated combination of nose and upper lip, which can be used to grab objects such as food. Elephants also have tusks, large teeth coming out of their upper jaws. Elephant tusks are the major source of ivory, but because of the increased rarity of elephants, hunting and ivory trade is now illegal.

It has long been known that African and Asian elephants were separate species. African elephants tend to be larger than the Asian species (up to 4m high and 7500kg) and have bigger ears (which are rich in veins and thought to help in cooling off the blood in the hotter African climate). Female African elephants have tusks, while female Asian Elephants do not. African elephants have a dipped back, as compared with Ithe Asian species, and have two "fingers" at the tip of their trunks, as opposed to only one.

Elephants have three premolars and three molars in each quadrant. They erupt in order from front to back, then wear down as the elephant chews its highly fibrous diet. When the last molar has worn out, the elephant typically dies of malnutrition; elephants in captivity can be kept alive longer than that by feeding them preground food. The molars of the African elephant are loxodont, hence the genus name.

There are two populations, savanna 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 savanna or bush population termed Loxodonta africanus. This reclassification has important implications for conservation, because it means where there were thought to be two small populations of a single endangered species, there may in fact be two separate species, each of which is even more severely endangered. There's also a potential danger in that if the forest elephant isn't 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.

African elephant (left) and Indian elephant at an English zoo.
Larger version

Elephants have been used in various capacities by humans. The Carthaginian general Hannibal took elephants across the Alps when he was fighting the Romans. Hannibal brought too few elephants to be of much military use, although his horse cavalry was quite successful. Hannibal probably used a smaller, now extinct third African species, the North African elephant, smaller than its two southern cousins.

Elephants have been used for transportation and entertainment, and are common to circuses around the world. Throughout Siam, India, and most of South Asia they were used in the military, used for heavy labor, especially for uprooting trees and moving logs, and were also commonly used as executioners to crush the condemned underfoot.

However, elephants have never been truly domesticated: the male elephant in heat is dangerous and difficult to control; elephants used by humans have typically been female. War elephants were an exception, however, as female elephants in battle will run from a male, only males could be used in war.

In the wild, elephants exhibit complex social behavior and strong family bonds. They communicate with very low and long-ranging sub-sonic tones.

A recent theory holds that elephants, which share an ancestor with sea cows, evolved from animals which spent most of their time in the water or even under water, using their trunks like snorkels for breathing. It has been recently discovered that the species can still swim using their trunks in that manner.

Elephant footprints (tyre tracks for scale)

Miscellaneous

The most famous fictional elephant might be Dumbo, the flying elephant in Disney movie. The Elephant's Child is one of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories

Ganesh is the god of wisdom in Hindu. He has an elephant's head.

The elephant is also the symbol for the United States Republican Party (often pictured with the Democratic party's donkey). The first depiction of the Republican party appeared in a cartoon by Thomas Nast of Harper's Weekly in 1874.

See also

• War elephant
• White elephant
• History of elephants in Europe
• Dumbo
• List of historical elephants
• List of fictional elephants
• Elephant (movie - winner of Cannes Film Festival 2003)

External Links

• Absolut elephant - general information
• European Elephant Keepers and Managers association Wiki
• Tim Radford: "The elephant time forgot", The Guardian 2001-08-24, 1. Describes the discovery of the third species of elephant.
• C.Johnson: "Elephant trunks were once snorkels", News in Science 1999-05-11,

For the April 1, 2003 indie rock album by The White Stripes, see Elephant

For the movie by Gus Van Sant, see Elephant

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