How many years does an elephant live? Savannah African elephant

The elephant is Earth's largest land animal, although the Indian elephant is slightly smaller than its African cousin. In this collection you will admire interesting photos elephants, and also learn about a number of interesting facts related to this animal

Elephants are amazing animals. They love water and love to "shower" themselves by watering themselves with their multi-functional trunk. An elephant needs a trunk; thanks to it, it not only takes a shower. An elephant's trunk is a long nose with various functions. Thanks to it, he breathes, smells, drinks, grabs food, and even makes sounds :) The trunk alone contains approximately 100,000 muscles. U Indian elephants there is a small finger-like process at the end of the trunk, which they can use to take some small objects (the African elephant has two such “fingers”) Elephants also have very powerful tusks. Ivory is highly prized by humans, which is why many elephants are killed for their tusks. The ivory trade is now illegal, but it has not been completely eliminated.

A third of the elephant's tusks are hidden in the animal's body, and there are now practically no elephants with large tusks left, since they were all destroyed by ivory hunters. Tusks grow throughout the animal's life; the older the elephant, the larger the tusks.

According to approximate calculations by scientists, the elephant feeds for at least 16 hours a day, absorbing about 45 - 450 kilograms of various vegetation during this entire time. Depending on weather conditions, the elephant drinks 100-300 liters of water per day

Elephants usually live in herds, where all individuals are related. They know how to greet each other, diligently take care of their offspring, and always remain faithful to the herd. If any member of the herd dies, the other elephants become very sad. Elephants are also one of those animals that can laugh.

The average lifespan of elephants is equal to that of a human, usually 70 years.

Elephants are called thick-skinned animals, as the thickness of an elephant's skin can reach 2.5 centimeters

Elephants have very good memory. They remember people who treated them well or badly, as well as places in which certain events happened to them

Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump

It is also surprising that such a clumsy-looking animal can develop quite a decent speed. An elephant can run at a speed of 30 kilometers per hour

Elephants sleep little, only a few hours a day, usually no more than 4 hours

Elephants are also very good swimmers; cases have been recorded of elephants swimming a distance of more than 70 kilometers.

Elephants eat tree roots, grass, fruits, and bark. They eat a lot. An adult elephant can consume up to 300 pounds (136 kilograms) of food per day. These giants practically do not sleep; they walk long distances to get their food. Having a baby elephant is considered a serious commitment. Elephants have the longest pregnancy of any other mammal - almost 22 months. Female elephants typically give birth to one calf once every four years. At birth, the baby elephant weighs approximately 200 pounds (91 kilograms) and is about three feet tall.

The statement that elephants have 4 knees is erroneous, although very widespread.

These animals also have a very large brain - its weight can reach 6 kilograms. No wonder elephants are on the list

Elephants are large mammals, of which there are two species: African and Indian. Mammoths used to live on Earth (they became extinct in ice age) and mastodons (extinct during the period of the first appearance of man on the North American continent). In this article we will answer the question: “Where do elephants live?” and consider their habitat and habits.

Differences between Indian and African elephants

Contrary to the apparent one hundred percent external resemblance from Indian and African elephants many differences. Let's take a closer look at them.

African elephants are superior to their Indian relatives in size and weight. The height of an adult animal living in Africa reaches 3.7 meters and weighs 6.5 tons. For comparison, for Indian relatives these figures are 3.5 meters and 5 tons.
African elephants have larger ears, with veins clearly visible through their thin skin. It is noteworthy that each individual has a unique pattern of veins on the ears, like fingerprints in people.
Distinctive feature African elephants are considered to have long, strong tusks in every animal, regardless of gender. Among Indian elephants, only males have this decoration. Tusks grow throughout life and act as an indicator of age.
The Indian elephant is calmer. Thanks to simple training, he becomes a reliable assistant to a person. He is trained to transport trees, lay planks, or retrieve objects from rivers.

That's not all interesting facts about these animals. The following information will be useful to schoolchildren who want to get the maximum score for the Unified State Exam. Among the elephants there are “left-handed” and “right-handed”. Belonging to a certain category is determined by which tusk is shorter. These animals work with one tusk, as a result of which it wears out faster.

Elephant bone is expensive as an ornamental base, so they often die at the hands of poachers. Now the trade in ivory has been banned, but still hundreds of these amazing animals die every year due to human fault.

Elephants have 4 molars. The weight of each tooth the size of a brick reaches 2-3 kilograms. Animals replace their molars 6 times during their life. With age, tooth sensitivity increases, which forces animals to stay closer to swampy areas with soft vegetation.

The elephant differs from other animals in its impressive body weight, design, behavior and presence long nose. The trunk is the connection between the upper lip and nose, with which it showers, breathes, smells, drinks and makes sounds. With this organ, containing 100 thousand muscles, the animal takes objects weighing up to a ton and carries tens of kilometers.

Habitat and habits of elephants

African giant lives in the steppes of Africa and Egypt. Indian individuals live in India, Ceylon, Indochina, and Burma.

Elephants live in a herd of up to 50 individuals, which are bound by behavioral norms. Some live separately because they are more likely to show aggression and are dangerous.
There is a friendly atmosphere in the herd, relatives take care of the offspring and support each other.
These are socially developed animals. They can show emotions and remember objects, places and people.

Elephants eat 130 kg of food per day (leaves, bark, fruits) and most of They spend time searching for it. Sleep no more than 4 hours a day. Animals are often located near rivers or lakes and drink 200 liters of water per day. The elephant is a good swimmer and easily swims long distances regardless of body weight.

The giant has a massive skeleton, making up 15% of its body weight. The skin reaches a thickness of 25 mm and is shrouded in sparse hairs. On average, an elephant lives 70 years. He cannot jump, but his running speed reaches 30 km per hour.

The female carries the baby for 88 weeks. This is a record among animals. A baby elephant is born every four years, weighing about 90 kg and measuring about a meter in height. The birth of a baby is important for members of the herd.

These mammals clear language communication. When an elephant is depressed or aggressive, the ears become spread apart. For protection, tusks, trunk and massive legs are used. In a moment of danger or fright, the animal squeals and, running away, literally demolishes everything in its path.

Where do elephants live in captivity?

Almost every zoo has elephants. It is not surprising, because they arouse special interest among the public. But sometimes even well-known zoos, due to the lack of a suitable place to keep them, refuse these animals.

Elephants suffer from boredom in confined spaces. IN natural environment they spend a lot of time searching for and absorbing food. In a small enclosure it is not possible to wander around enough, and a small number of individuals leads to disruption of social contacts.

European zoos are trying to provide elephants with spacious pens for walking. Less docile males, who are dangerous in a state of turmoil, are given additional space. Some zoos provide pens for females with their offspring. This allows members of the small herd to get to know the new addition.

Huge value Diversity of range plays a role in elephant breeding. Large elephant herds set up enclosures so that animals can move freely. Such conditions are more suitable for successful breeding in captivity.

Elephants are socially developed mammals. For many reasons, this species is on the verge of extinction. Animals need protection and protection. This fact found a lot positive feedback among scientists and officials. Nature reserves are being actively created where animals live under protection. The territory of such complexes must correspond normal environment habitat. On at the moment Several reserves meet these requirements, including:

National Park Bandipur, India.
Amboseli National Park, Kenya.
Elephant Sanctuary in Knysna, South Africa.
Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary, Malaysia.
Elephant Safari Park, Bali.

Each of the listed places is ideal for entertaining summer holiday.

People harm environment, therefore, many species of animals are dying out, but there remains hope that one of the largest mammals, elephants, will continue to live not only in captivity, but also in their native environment. The task of man is to help ensure that children can enjoy the greatness of these animals in the vastness of the savannah and forests.

Contents of the article

ELEPHANTS, elephants (Elephantidae). A family uniting the largest and most powerful living people terrestrial mammals. These are tall, thick-skinned animals of the tropical regions of Asia and Africa that feed on young shoots of trees and shrubs. Elephants have a massive head and body, a long trunk, large fan-shaped ears and so-called tusks. ivory. The family belongs to the order Proboscidea. The boneless, muscular trunk of elephants is a fused and greatly elongated upper lip and nose. It ends, depending on the type of animal, with one or two protrusions, which, while simultaneously sucking air through the nostrils, can be used as fingers for grasping small objects. With their trunks, elephants send food and water into their mouths, cover themselves with dust, pour themselves, trumpet and make many other sounds. This sensitive organ, vital for them, turns in all directions, capturing the finest odors, and when there is a threat of damage, it curls tightly.

The huge tusks of the elephant represent the second pair of upper incisors that have grown to incredible sizes, with a significant part of each tooth deeply embedded in the bone tissue of the skull. Small milk tusks of a young animal are replaced by permanent ones, which continue to grow throughout life. The molar tooth is formed as if by a stack of transverse vertical plates, each of which is equipped with its own roots with pulp, and together they are united with cement into a large enamel-dentin block approximately 30 cm long and weighing 3.6–4.1 kg. An elephant has a total of 24 molars, but of these, only one is functioning at any given moment on each side of the upper and lower jaws. Having worn out, it falls out, and another, larger one slides out from behind in its place. The last, and largest, molar takes its place when the animal is approx. 40 years, and serves another 20 years, until the death of the owner. Under favorable conditions, elephants live more than 60 years.

The elephant is considered an intelligent animal, but its brain, although large in absolute size, is disproportionately small in comparison with its enormous body mass. The short, thick, muscular neck is necessary to support the huge tusked head, but allows only limited movement. Small eyes surrounded by long ones thick eyelashes. Large fan-shaped ears, like fans, constantly move hot tropical air. The legs are like vertical columns, the toes point downwards, so that the heels are raised off the ground and the body weight rests mainly on the thick pad behind the toes. The short tail ends in a stiff brush, and the skin—often 2.5 cm thick—is covered with sparse, coarse hair.

Between the eye and ear there is a slit-shaped temporal gland, the purpose of which is not precisely established. When it is activated, the animal's forehead swells and a dark oily liquid flows out of the gap; this indicates a state of extreme arousal (in India it is called "must"), apparently of a sexual nature. As a rule, “must” is observed in males, but is generally characteristic of animals of both sexes. It first appears in young elephants around 21 years of age and disappears completely by age 50.

Elephants feed on tall grass, fruits, tubers, tree bark, as well as thin shoots, especially fresh ones. To maintain normal weight and strength, the animal needs to receive approx. 250 kg of feed and 190 liters of water. In captivity, a typical daily diet for an elephant includes 90 kg of hay, more than two bags of potatoes and 3 kg of onions.

Despite its massive build and amazing strength, the elephant's movements are surprisingly smooth and graceful. With a normal rhythmic step he walks at a speed of 6.4 km/h, and at a distance of approx. 50 m can accelerate to 40 km/h. However, the elephant is not capable of galloping and jumping. The ditch, too wide to cross, becomes an insurmountable obstacle for him. The elephant swims well, maintaining a speed of approximately 1.6 km/h in water for almost 6 hours.

Typically, elephant herds consist of one to four families and unite 30–50 individuals under the leadership of one of the females, including many elephant calves. At times, males join the herds and generally gravitate towards single life. Young males sometimes form small and less stable bachelor herds. Some solitary males (hermit elephants) become very angry in old age.

Females begin to mate only after reaching 18 years of age, and males only when they acquire mass and strength sufficient to compete for females. IN mating season the male and female spend several weeks together in the forest away from the herd. Female wild Indian elephant after a pregnancy lasting from 18 to 22 months, an elephant calf weighing 64–97 kg usually gives birth in the spring. If the mother is disturbed, she carries it with her trunk to a safe place, and during the first weeks of the calf's life, several members of the herd protect it from predators day and night. Until almost the age of five, the elephant calf sucks milk with its mouth from the mother’s nipples, located between her front legs, and then begins to feed with the help of her trunk. Usually a female elephant gives birth to one baby at a time; in total, she gives birth to 5–12 babies during her life, but she is often followed by 2 baby elephants of different ages, since she can bear offspring once every three years.

Origin of elephants.

Elephants are the only surviving representatives of the ancient group of proboscis, which once inhabited most of the land except Australia. Its oldest known representative is Meriteria ( Moeritherium), a small animal with a slightly longer nose than a tapir, described from Upper Eocene and Early Oligocene finds in the Nile Valley in Egypt. IN Southern Europe And North Africa lived in Pleistocene times Palaeoloxodon antiquus, a huge elephant with a height of 4.3 m at the withers. Many of the primitive proboscis disappeared only 15,000 years ago, and Paleolithic man captured them on the walls of caves. Then, in the grassy tundras of the northern circumpolar regions, woolly mammoths with huge, strongly curved tusks were not uncommon; their well-preserved bodies have been repeatedly found in the Siberian permafrost. In North America, the ranges of the Columbian and Imperial mammoth subspecies reached south to the north of what is now New York State. Mastodons were found in abundance in Europe and America; their teeth and bones were even discovered during the construction of the New York subway. In Italy and on the islands Mediterranean Sea There were elephants no larger than a Shetland pony, distinguished by straight tusks. See also MAMMOTHS; MASTODONS.

Training and use of elephants.

Unlike a horse, a large cattle and the camel, the elephant as a species has never been truly domesticated, although individual animals have long been domesticated and used for a variety of purposes. The Indian elephant, judging by the surviving carved seals, served man already in 2000 BC; it is believed that at the same time attempts were made to subjugate its less flexible African relative.

Probably the earliest written mention of the use of elephants in warfare dates back to 326 BC. Then the Indian king Porus sent 200 elephants with archers on their backs into battle against Alexander the Great on the banks of the Hydaspes River. At the Battle of Heraclea in 280 BC. King Pyrrhus trampled the Roman infantry with elephants, inflicting the first and only defeat on their army from these animals. However, five years later he lost the decisive Battle of Beneventum to the Romans, and to commemorate their victory in the war they struck a coin with the image of an elephant. The story of Hannibal's march on Rome across the Alps in 218 BC is widely known: in these mountains he lost most of his 37 elephants, and all the rest but one died crossing the Apennines. After Hannibal's final defeat in the Punic War, the use of war elephants was abandoned.

The first living elephant in America was a relatively small two-year-old female brought to New York from Calcutta in 1796. Perhaps she turned out to be the Learned Elephant, or Little Beth, who was killed in 1822 in Chepachet (Rhode Island) by boys who wanted to test whether elephant skin was really bulletproof.

The famous elephant Jumbo was born in equatorial Africa in the vicinity of Lake Chad, from where he was brought as a baby in 1862 to the Paris Botanical Garden. In 1865 it was sold to the Royal Zoological Gardens in London, where it remained for 18 years until it was shipped to the USA. For three years, Jumbo traveled all over North America By railway in a specially equipped carriage and carried more than a million children on his back. He died in 1885 as a result train accident in the Canadian province of Ontario. His stuffed animal is now at Tufts University (Massachusetts), and a huge skeleton (the height of the animal at the withers was 3.2 m) is exhibited at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

The elephant is revered by many peoples. Buddhism puts it on a par with the dove of peace, and the Hindu god of wisdom Ganesha is an elephant-headed one. In India, all white elephants were considered the property of rajahs and were never used for work, but the greatest honor was given to such animals in Siam. Even the king was forbidden to ride a white elephant. Food was served to him on huge gold or silver dishes, and his drinking water scented with jasmine. The animal, covered with precious blankets, was carried on a luxuriously decorated platform. African pygmies They believe that elephants are possessed by the souls of their dead leaders.

MODERN SPECIES OF ELEPHANTS

Indian elephant

(Elephas maximus) widespread in South Asia; its range covers parts of India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Indochina and the Malacca Peninsula. There are three subspecies: Bengal ( E.m. bengalensis), a relatively small Ceylonese ( E.m. ceylonicus) and Sumatran ( E.m. sumatrensis), an animal of even smaller size, relatively slender and lacking tusks.

The Indian elephant has smaller ears and tusks than the African elephant, a convex forehead, and only one “finger” at the end of the trunk. The hind legs have 4 toes with peculiar nails, the front legs have 5. The tusks of males reach a length of 2.4 m, but are never longer than 3 m, the record weight of one tusk is 72 kg. In females, the tusks are usually invisible, rarely protruding from the mouth. On average, an adult elephant weighs 3.5 tons with a height at the withers of 2.7 m, but the mass is especially large males reaches 6 tons with a height of 3 m.

The main use of the Indian elephant is skidding logs, especially teak tree trunks, from mountain slopes inaccessible to mechanical means of transport. The animal easily drags logs weighing 2 tons, and, if necessary, four tons. Usually the elephants work together, pulling huge logs down the slope without the urging of the mahout.

Elephants do not reproduce well in captivity, so to use them as labor force young wild animals aged 15–20 years are captured and trained. However, if an elephant is over 18 years old, resisting trappers, it receives serious injuries, and it will never be able to achieve the same obedience as from individuals that were caught at a younger age.

Wild elephants are caught in different ways. Individuals are surrounded by a group of tame elephants with drivers and driven day and night until the animal allows ropes and chains to be thrown over itself. A group of elephants local residents with torches, sticks and beaters, they surround and crowd into a round enclosure made of bamboo. In Karnataka, they use “elephant pits” of precisely calculated size so that animals that fall into them do not injure themselves while trying to escape. In Nepal, Bengal and Sri Lanka wild elephants sometimes they are caught using a lasso attached to a tame animal.

Each young elephant is assigned a boy trainer, and they remain together for life. The boy bathes his charge every day, polishes his tusks with sand and teaches the animal useful skills. After a day's work, the elephant goes into the forest and feeds there most of the night. In the morning, the trainer finds his sleeping pupil and carefully wakes him up, because a sharp wake-up can put the elephant in a bad mood for the whole day. Training begins at approximately 14 years of age; by the age of 19, the animal is ready for easy work, but he is attracted to severe ones only after 25 years.

An elephant is unprofitable as a beast of burden, since the average load it can carry does not exceed 270 kg; however, they claim that the Japanese transported 4 tons of ammunition on each animal during World War II. The cabin, blanket and harness carried by a ceremoniously decorated elephant often weigh half a ton.

African elephant

(Loxodonta africana) is much larger than the Indian one. It was once widespread across much of sub-Saharan Africa, from lowland savannas to altitudes of 3000 m; it is still common in some inaccessible areas of the continent and nature reserves. By appearance this animal is easy to distinguish from asian elephant. The height at the withers of a female is on average 2.1 m, an adult male is 3–3.9 m. Huge ears, 1.1 m wide, together with the head, reach a span of more than 3 m. The trunk, up to 2.4 m long, bears two outgrowths at the end . The hind legs have 3 toes with peculiar nails, the front legs have 4. Both females and males are armed with well-developed tusks. In the former they are thinner, up to 1.8 m long, while in the latter they reach three meters in length and weigh up to 103 kg each. Normal skin coloring is dark gray, but African elephants often cover themselves with dry soil, so they sometimes appear brick red. Like their Asian relatives, the animals usually roam in herds of up to about 50 individuals, but temporary aggregations of more than a hundred elephants have been observed.

The species in question is divided into three subspecies: South African ( Loxodonta africana africana), considered typical, East African ( L. africana knochenbaueri) and Sudanese ( L. africana oxyotis).

Many researchers have repeatedly noted and described relatively small elephants from the rain forests and dense jungles of West Africa from Sierra Leone to Angola in the south and to the Zaire River basin in the east. Their height at the withers rarely exceeds 2.4 m, they are distinguished by small ears for an African elephant and are quite densely covered with hair. These elephants were called forest or pygmy elephants and were sometimes considered a separate species. However, most experts now believe that we're talking about either about small individuals or about African elephant calves. Indeed, all pygmy elephants that were shown in circuses reached normal sizes for this species, unless their growth was artificially delayed.

According to African legends, all elephants in a herd come to die in one specific place, but such cemeteries have never been found. However, in Angola at the beginning of the 18th century. Huge piles of elephant tusks were discovered, often containing more than four tons of ivory, topped with wooden idols and human skulls.

There are up to half a million African elephants in the world; Asian elephants are about 10 times smaller. As you know, elephants are large and very intelligent animals, which have served humans for peaceful and military purposes since ancient times.

Giants

Elephants are the most gigantic land animals on Earth. Average weight they reach five tons, and the body length is 6-7 meters. In 1956, an elephant weighing 11 tons was killed in Angola.

A female elephant carries a baby for 22 months, the newborn weighs 120 kilograms.

The brain of an elephant weighs 5 kilograms, the heart - 20-30 kilograms. It beats at a frequency of 30 beats per minute.

To feed such a “colossus”, an elephant has to look for food and eat most of the day, at least 20 hours. An elephant eats from 45 to 450 kilograms of plant food per day and drinks from 100 to 300 liters of water.

Elephants live 50-70 years. But there are also reporters. War elephant (served in the Chinese army) Lin Wang from Taiwan died in 2003 at the age of 86.

Smarties

Aristotle wrote: “The elephant is an animal that surpasses all others in wit and intelligence.” Elephants really have a very good memory and developed intelligence. Elephants also turned out to be capable of learning human language.

An elephant named Kaushik, living in Asia, has learned to imitate human speech, or rather, five words: annyong (hello), anja (sit), aniya (no), nuo (lie down) and choah (good).

Kaushik does not just mindlessly repeat them, but, according to observers, understands their meaning, since these are either commands that he carries out, or words of encouragement and disapproval.

Communication

Elephants usually communicate using infrasound, so for a long time the elephant's tongue remained unsolved. Research by Christian Herbst of the University of Vienna on the larynx of a dead elephant showed that elephants use their vocal cords to communicate.

The “vocabulary” of the elephant language turned out to be quite rich - Herbst recorded about 470 different stable signals that elephants use.

They can use them to communicate with each other over long distances, warn of danger, report births, and use various addresses to members of the herd, depending on their position in the hierarchy.

Trunk

An elephant's trunk is actually an extension of its upper lip. With the help of their trunk, elephants make tactile contact, say hello, can take objects, draw, drink and wash themselves. The trunk of the trunk can simultaneously hold up to eight liters of water. The trunk also has more than 40,000 receptors. Elephants have a very good sense of smell.

Tusks

Elephants, like people, can be left-handed or right-handed. Depending on which tusk the elephant works more, one of them becomes smaller.

Over the past century and a half, the average length of elephant tusks in both Africa and India has halved.

This is due to the fact that the most big representatives populations become victims of poachers, and the length of the tusks is a genetically inherited trait.

The tusks of deceased elephants are extremely rare to find. Because of this, for a long time there was an opinion that elephants go to die in mysterious elephant cemeteries. Only in the last century it was discovered that porcupines eat tusks, thus compensating for mineral hunger.

Taming the Elephants

Elephants, although intelligent animals, can also be dangerous. Male elephants periodically go through a state of so-called “must”. At this time, the level of testosterone in the blood of animals is 60 times higher than normal.

In order to achieve balance and obedience in elephants, they begin to be trained from early childhood.

One of the most effective methods like this: a baby elephant’s leg is tied to a tree trunk. Gradually he gets used to the fact that it is impossible to free himself from this state. When the animal grows up, it is enough to tie it to a young tree, and the elephant will not try to free itself.

Funeral rite

Elephants not only high level intellect, but also sensitive hearts. When someone from an elephant family dies, his relatives lift him up with their trunks, loudly turbulate him, and then roll him to a hollow and cover him with branches and throw earth at him. Then the elephants sit silently next to the body for several more days.

There are also cases where elephants also try to bury people, sometimes mistaking sleeping people for dead.

Gigantism occurs among animals as a natural process of evolution. Currently, elephants are the largest mammals on the planet. And they are remarkable not only for this. The main amazing trump card of elephants is their trunk, which serves as a hand, a mouth, a nose, and a means of defense.

The elephant trunk is so versatile and unique organ that the animal can lift a heavy log and grab a small match.

The largest of the African elephants, its weight reaches 7.5 tons and its height is 4 meters. Its Indian relative is a third smaller.

To maintain its existence, an adult must eat 200 kg of green mass per day and drink up to 200 liters of water.

Interestingly, like people, elephants can be right-handed or left-handed. Right-handed people use the right tusk more often, which causes it to wear out more and become shorter over time.

Probably the most known fact about the pregnancy of elephants, which lasts almost 2 years, or rather 22 months. Elephants have strong and friendly families, often consisting of several generations, mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers. Female elephants take care of their cub for 10 - 15 years, and also take part in raising sisters, brothers, and nephews.

Elephants are among the ten most intelligent animals on earth. They have a rich “speech”, excellent memory and a stormy emotional sphere.

African elephants actually sleep standing up, while Indian elephants lie down on the ground at night.

The lifespan of elephants is similar to that of humans - 80 years. However, this species of fauna is under threat of extinction. Providing an ecologically clean habitat for elephants is the task of prudent humanity.

Background Information on Elephants

Elephants are a family of mammals of the once numerous proboscis order; the grasping trunk was formed as a result of the fusion of the nose and upper lip; upper incisors (tusks) up to 3 m long and 4 molars, replaced with new ones as they are ground down; 2 types: African - height at withers 3-4 m, weight up to 7.5 tons and Indian - height at withers up to 3 m, weight up to 5 tons; The mammoth is an extinct species.

The animal lives throughout Africa, except deserts. Lives about 70 years. It feeds on grass, tree bark, shoots and leaves, roots and fruits. Eating takes up to 16 hours a day. During this time, adults eat up to 400 kg of food. If there is not enough salt in the elephants' food, they look for licks - places where salt appears on the surface of the earth. Animals drink a lot of water: approximately 230 liters per day - almost two baths.

Adult males weigh more than five tons. Maximum height to the shoulder in males it is 4 m, and the length without trunk and tail is 7 m. Females are slightly smaller.

The natural color of an elephant's skin is grayish-black, but changes color after mud baths. Its layers can exceed three centimeters. The beast has thick bones and strong muscular legs. The pads on the soles allow the elephant to walk as if on tiptoe. Maximum speed animal - 24 km/h. The trunk has about 40,000 muscles and is used by the elephant for various purposes. Long tusks are teeth that continue to grow throughout life. The longest tusks are almost 3.5 m in size. The elephant needs them to dig up roots. The animal uses one of the tusks more than the other. Elephants have good eyesight, but the animal relies more on smell, touch and hearing. Long eyelashes are not for beauty; they are a protective barrier against dust for the eyes. African elephants have excellent hearing. But they also use their large ears as fans. Elephants have the largest brains among animals.

Elephants are good swimmers: they can stay in the water without touching the bottom for up to six hours.

Animals make loud sounds that can be heard at a distance of 10 km.

Elephants live in herds and take care of each other. The herd spends a lot of time grazing. During a lion attack, all members of the group come to the victim's defense. Elephants carry their babies for 22 months. During childbirth, all the females of the herd are near the woman in labor. They help her, and then joyfully trumpet and shout, announcing the birth of a new member of the family. The newborn is quite large: its height is 90 cm, and its weight varies from 77 to 113 kg. In the first month, the baby elephant learns to drink and walk with the herd. He needs more than 10 liters of milk per day. The baby elephant tries to stay close to his mother, who teaches and protects him. Babies are in danger from hyenas and lions. Soon the baby elephant begins to learn to use its trunk. To do this, you need to train a lot: he lifts objects, greets his relatives, learns to get food and water. Until the age of 2 years, baby elephants drink their mother’s milk, but little by little they try plants. To make it easier to digest the bark and twigs, they eat the feces of adults. At two years old, babies develop small tusks. Elephants gain full independence at six years of age. At the age of ten, young males leave their native herd and join other males. Females live with their family all their lives. By the age of 18 they become mothers. Males mature to reproduce two years later. After mating, they protect their mate from rivals.

Number of African elephants in wildlife is rapidly decreasing. As of 2005, there were only 500,000 of them left.