Elephant

Elephants are two species of large land mammals in the family Elephantidae, the only extant family in the order Proboscidea. Scientists currently recognize two elephant species: the African elephant (Loxodonta africana) and the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). Centuries of hunting elephants for their ivory have reduced their populations, but renewed stewardship efforts have increased African elephant populations over the past nineteen years.

Elephant
African elephant Loxodonta africana
Scientific classification
Kingdom Information
Domain	Eukaryota
Kingdom	Animalia
Subkingdom	Bilateria
Phylum Information
Phylum	Chordata
Sub-phylum	Vertebrata
Infraphylum	Gnathostomata
Class Information
Superclass	Tetrapoda
Class	Mammalia
Sub-class	Theria
Infra-class	Eutheria
Order Information
Order	Proboscidea
Family Information
Superfamily	Elephantoidea
Family	Elephantidae
Genus Information
Genera	Elephas Loxodonta
Species Information
Species	E. maximus L. africana
Population statistics

Description

Elephants are the largest land animals alive today. The largest elephant ever recorded (the Fenykovi elephant, now in the Smithsonian Institution) was a male shot in Angola in 1955; it weighed about 10.7 tonnes (12 U.S. tons) and stood 13 feet, 2 inches at the shoulder. The slightly-smaller Asian elephant had a maximum recorded height of 11 feet 9 inches and eight tons in one individual recorded in 1985. Forest elephant bulls rarely exceed eight feet in height.

Apart from their massive size, their most striking features are a long trunk, or proboscis, a flexible nose strong enough to lift heavy objects. Their skin is up to 1.5 inches thick and gray, with African bush elephants more heavily wrinkled than their Asian counterparts. All three species have ivory tusks, but female Asian elephants generally lack them unless they are rudimentary in size, and even then they are usually only seen when the mouth is open. The legs are columnar and massive; the feet are broad and round.

The African species differs from Asian elephants in the overall shape of the back; it is "saddle-shaped,' i.e., the back is concave in the center, while the Asian species has a distinctive hump or arch. African elephants also have larger, fan-shaped ears that extend over and nearly completely cover the neck; Asian elephant ears are much smaller. African elephants have two finger-like processes at the tip of the trunk, while Asian elephants have one. Both species have five toes on the forefeet, but the African elephant has three toes on the hind feet; the Asian species has four, and sometimes five, toes on the hind feet.

Species

African elephants are represented by two subspecies:

• Bush, or savannah elephant (Loxodonta africana africana), of the savannahs and grasslands of sub-Saharan Africa;
• Forest elephant (Loxodonta africana cyclotis), of the tropical rain forests in central Africa.

Some authorities consider both animals distinct species, with the extinct North African elephant (Loxodonta africana pharaoensis) a subspecies of the bush elephant.

The Asian elephant has three subspecies:

• Indian elephant (Elephas maximus indicus), of southern and south-eastern Asia;
• Sri Lankan elephant (Elephas maximus maximus), of the island of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean;
• Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus), of the islands of Sumatra and Borneo in Indonesia.

Behavior

Elephants live mainly in matriarchal herds, led by the oldest female. They consist of sisters, daughters, cousins, and aunts caring for each other and their young. The matriarch leads her herd to available feeding grounds or water sources; in times of drought, she leads the herd on journeys to places she remembers. When a member of the herd dies, the herd holds a funeral, caressing the body with their trunks.

Bull elephants, when inclined to mate, enter a frenzied state called musth; they fight with each other for possession of the cow elephants, and become a menace to everything in their path; many humans are killed at this time. Elephants' gestation period, at 22 months, is the longest of any land mammal. At birth, an elephant calf commonly weighs 120 kg (265 lb). An elephant may live up to 70 years, sometimes longer.

Uses of Elephants

Elephants (today generally Indian, but historically African elephants also) have been used as beasts of burden and draught animals, as mounts in processions and in war (notably by Hannibal), playing polo, and as circus performers. They are also popular for tourist rides in Thailand. People often hunt elephants for the ivory in their tusks.

Similar and related species

From a molecular and morphological point of view, hyraxes and Sirenians (sea cows and manatees) are the most similar living creatures to elephants, and these groups are hypothesized by evolutionists to have shared a common ancestor approximately 50 million years ago. Creationists say each kind was separately created, and that two of the elephant kind were on board Noah's Ark, and that all elephants alive today descend from them.

The three extant species of elephant are the sole survivors of a much more diverse Proboscidean fauna with some 170 described fossil species, including species of mammoth from North America and the massive Deinotherium, the second largest land mammal that ever lived, which sported two downward-facing tusks. According to Young Earth Creationists, some extinct elephants may represent species that did not survive the Great Flood, while some other more recently extinct species represent descendants of the two on board Noah's Ark. Regardless, extinct and living elephants represent a distinct holobaramin separate from other mammals.

Trivia

• A white elephant (from the historical veneration of such animals in Southeast Asia) is the term for a possession whose initial and upkeep cost exceeds its use (in most cases income), making it an overall liability.
• An elephant is the symbol of America's Republican Party.
• Elephants are the only mammals that can't jump.

Elephant pictures

Indian elephants in Kerala, India

See also

• Elephant in the living room