Elephant - a good-natured giant

ELEPHANTS
elephant (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 tusks made of so-called. 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. Elephants use their trunks to push food and water into their mouths, sprinkle themselves with dust, douse 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 each of them this moment There is only one functioning 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. 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, a dark oily liquid flows out of the gap, and the elephant becomes extremely excited (in India it is called "must"), apparently of a sexual nature. As a rule, males are more susceptible to this, but in general, “must” is 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 the water for almost 6 hours. Typically, herds of elephants 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. A female wild Indian elephant, after a pregnancy lasting from 18 to 22 months, usually gives birth to a calf weighing 64-97 kg 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 proboscideans, which once inhabited most of the land except Australia. Its oldest known representative is Moeritherium, a small animal with a nose slightly longer than that of a tapir, described from Upper Eocene and Early Oligocene finds in the Nile Valley in Egypt. IN Southern Europe And North Africa in Pleistocene times there lived Palaeoloxodon antiquus, a huge elephant 4.3 m high at the withers. Many of the primitive proboscis disappeared only 15,000 years ago, and Paleolithic man depicted 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.
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 but one of the rest 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. Jumbo, the world's most famous elephant, 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 in Medford (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: the Bengal (E. m. bengalensis), the relatively small Ceylon (E. m. ceylonicus) and the Sumatran (E. m. sumatrensis), an animal of even smaller size, relatively slender and tuskless.

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 modes 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 work force they catch and train young wild animals aged 15-20 years. 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 are caught in more at a young age. Wild elephants are caught 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) much larger than the Indian one. It was once widespread across much of sub-Saharan Africa, from lowland savannas to altitudes of 3,000 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 about 50 individuals, but temporary aggregations of more than a hundred elephants have been observed.

Elephant- one of the most amazing animals. They not only know a lot, but they can also be sad, worry, bored and even laugh.

In difficult situations, they always come to the aid of their relatives. Elephants have a talent for music and drawing.

Features and habitat of the elephant

Two million years ago, during the Pleistocene period, mammoths and mastodons were widespread throughout the planet. Currently, two species of elephants have been studied: African and Indian.

There is an opinion that this is the most large mammal on the planet. However, it is wrong. The largest is the blue or blue whale, in second place is the sperm whale and only the third place is occupied by the African elephant.

It is truly the largest of all land animals. The second largest land animal after the elephant is the hippopotamus.

At the withers, the African elephant reaches 4 m and weighs up to 7.5 tons. Indian elephant weighs a little smaller – up to 5t, its height – 3m. The mammoth is one of the extinct proboscis animals. The elephant is a sacred animal in India and Thailand.

Pictured is an Indian elephant

According to legend, Buddha's mother had a dream White elephant with a lotus, which predicted the birth of an unusual child. The white elephant is a symbol of Buddhism and the embodiment of spiritual wealth. When an albino elephant is born in Thailand, it is a significant event; the King of the state himself takes it under his wing.

These are the largest land mammals that inhabit Southeast Asia. They prefer to settle in savannah and tropical forests. It is impossible to meet them only in deserts.

Elephant animal, which is famous for its large tusks. They are used when obtaining food, to clear the road, and to mark the territory. The tusks grow constantly, in adult individuals the growth rate can reach 18 cm per year, old individuals have the largest tusks of approximately 3 meters.

Teeth are constantly worn down, fall out, and new ones grow in their place (they change about five times in a lifetime). The price of elephant ivory is very high, which is why the animals are constantly being destroyed.

And although the animals are protected and are even listed as international, there are still poachers who are ready to kill this beautiful animal for profit.

It is very rare to find animals with large tusks, since almost all of them were exterminated. It is noteworthy that in many countries killing an elephant carries the death penalty.

There is a legend about the existence of separate mysterious cemeteries among elephants, where old and sick animals go to die, since it is very rare to find the tusks of dead animals. However, scientists managed to dispel this legend; it turned out that porcupines feast on tusks, which thus satisfy their mineral hunger.

Elephant is a species of animal, which has another interesting organ - a trunk, reaching seven meters in length. It is formed from the upper lip and nose. The trunk contains approximately 100,000 muscles. This organ is used for breathing, drinking and making sounds. It plays an important role when eating food, as a kind of flexible hand.

To grasp small objects, the Indian elephant uses a small appendage on its trunk that resembles a finger. African representative has two of them. The trunk serves both for plucking blades of grass and for breaking big trees. With the help of the trunk, animals can take a shower from dirty water.

This is not only pleasant for the animals, but also protects the skin from annoying insects (the dirt dries out and forms a protective film). Elephant is a group of animals which have very large ears. U African elephants they are much larger than those of Asian ones. The ears of animals are not only a hearing organ.

Since elephants do not have sebaceous glands, they never sweat. Numerous capillaries piercing the ears in hot weather expand and release excess heat into the atmosphere. In addition, this organ can be fanned.

Elephant- the only thing mammal, which cannot jump or run. They can either simply walk or move at a brisk pace, which is equivalent to running. Despite heavy weight, thick skin (about 3 cm) and thick bones, the elephant walks very quietly.

The thing is that the pads on the animal’s foot spring and expand as the load increases, which makes the animal’s gait almost silent. These same pads help elephants move through swampy areas. At first glance, the elephant is a rather clumsy animal, but it can reach speeds of up to 30 km per hour.

Elephants have excellent vision, but use more of their senses of smell, touch and hearing. Long eyelashes are designed to protect against dust. Being good swimmers, animals can swim up to 70 km and stay in the water without touching the bottom for six hours.

The sounds made by elephants using the larynx or trunk can be heard at a distance of 10 km.

Character and lifestyle of an elephant

Wild elephants live in a herd of up to 15 animals, where all individuals are exclusively females and relatives. The head of the herd is the matriarch female. The elephant cannot stand loneliness; it is vital for him to communicate with his relatives; they are loyal to the herd until death.

Members of the herd help and care for each other, raise children conscientiously and protect themselves from danger and help weak members of the family. Male elephants are often solitary animals. They live next to some group of females, less often they form their own herds.

Children live in a group until they are 14 years old. Then they choose: either stay in the herd or create their own. If a fellow tribesman dies, the animal becomes very sad. In addition, they respect the ashes of their relatives, they will never step on them, trying to move them from the path, and they even recognize the bones of relatives among other remains.

Elephants spend no more than four hours sleeping during the day. Animals African elephants sleep standing up. They huddle together and lean on each other. Old elephants lay their large tusks on a termite mound or tree.

Indian elephants sleep lying on the ground. The elephant's brain is quite complex and is second only to whales in structure. It weighs approximately 5 kg. In the animal world, elephant- one of the most intelligent representatives of fauna in the world.

They can recognize themselves in the mirror, which is one of the signs of self-awareness. Only and can boast of this quality. Also, only chimpanzees and elephants use tools.

Observations have shown that the Indian elephant can use a tree branch as a fly swatter. Elephants have excellent memory. They easily remember places they have been and people they have interacted with.

Nutrition

Elephants love to eat. Elephants feed 16 hours a day. They need up to 450 kg of various plants daily. An elephant can drink from 100 to 300 liters of water per day, depending on the weather.

In the photo there are elephants at a watering hole

Elephants are herbivores; their diet includes tree roots and bark, grass, and fruits. Animals replenish the lack of salt with the help of licks (salt that has come to the surface of the earth). In captivity, elephants eat grass and hay.

They will never give up apples, bananas, cookies and bread. Excessive love for sweets can lead to health problems, but candy of the most varied varieties is the most favorite delicacy.

Elephant reproduction and lifespan

In terms of time, the mating season of elephants is not strictly defined. However, it has been observed that during the rainy season, the birth rate of animals increases. During the period of estrus, which lasts no more than two days, the female attracts the male for mating with her cries. They stay together for no more than a few weeks. At this time, the female can move away from the herd.

Interestingly, male elephants can be homosexual. After all, the female mates only once a year, and her pregnancy lasts quite a long time. Males need sexual partners much more often, which leads to the emergence of same-sex relationships.

After 22 months, usually one cub is born. The birth takes place in the presence of all members of the herd, who are ready to help if necessary. After they are over, the whole family begins to trumpet, shout and announce the increase.

Baby elephants weigh approximately 70 to 113 kg, are about 90 cm tall and are completely toothless. Only at the age of two years do they develop small milk tusks, which will be replaced by molar tusks with age.

A newborn elephant calf needs more than 10 liters of mother's milk per day. Until two years of age, it constitutes the child’s main diet, and little by little the baby begins to eat plants.

They may also feed on their mother's feces to make it easier to digest plant branches and bark. Baby elephants always stay close to their mother, who protects and teaches him. And you have to learn a lot: drink water, move with the herd and control the trunk.

Working with a trunk is a very difficult task, constant training, lifting objects, obtaining food and water, greeting relatives, and so on. The mother elephant and members of the entire herd protect the babies from attacks and.

Animals become independent at the age of six. At 18 years of age, females can give birth. Females give birth to babies approximately once every four years. Males become mature two years later. IN wildlife The life expectancy of animals is about 70 years, in captivity - 80 years. The oldest elephant, who died in 2003, lived to be 86 years old.

The content of the article

ELEPHANTS, elephants (Elephantidae). A family that includes the largest and most powerful living land 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 tusks made of so-called. 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. Elephants use their trunks to push food and water into their mouths, sprinkle themselves with dust, douse 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 are surrounded by long 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 toward solitary 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. During the mating season, the male and female spend several weeks together in the forest away from the herd. A female wild Indian elephant, after a pregnancy lasting from 18 to 22 months, usually gives birth to a calf weighing 64–97 kg 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. Typically, 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 give birth 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 during the Pleistocene time lived 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 of the 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 the horse, cattle and 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 but one of the rest 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 rail in a specially equipped carriage and carried more than a million children on his back. He died in 1885 as a result of a 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. His food was served on huge gold or silver platters, and his drinking water was flavored with jasmine. The animal, covered with precious blankets, was carried on a luxuriously decorated platform. African pygmies 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 of 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, 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 is surrounded by locals with torches, sticks and beaters and forced 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 are sometimes captured 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 about 14 years of age; by the age of 19, the animal is ready for light work, but it is attracted to heavy work 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 3,000 m; it is still common in some inaccessible areas of the continent and nature reserves. In appearance, this animal is easy to distinguish from the 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 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.

Elephants are the largest land mammals on our planet. The most known species The elephant families are African and Asian (Indian) elephants. They live on different continents, but lead almost the same lifestyle.

Where do elephants live?

African elephant habitats

Once upon a time African elephants inhabited almost all African continent. The habitat of elephants stretched from north to south of the entire continent. Back in the 6th century AD, the northern elephant population was completely exterminated.

In the 21st century, the African elephant population has survived in southern, western, eastern and central African countries, namely: Namibia, Tanzania, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Kenya, South Africa, Mali, Botswana, Ethiopia, Chad, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Zambia, Uganda, Botswana, Niger, Guinea, Ghana, Rwanda, Liberia, Cameroon, Benin, Sierra Leone, Togo, Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic Congo, Sudan, Eritrea, Gabon, Swaziland, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea. Most of livestock in these countries live in nature reserves and national parks. When elephants leave nature reserves, they often become prey for poachers.

African elephants live in different landscapes, avoiding only deserts and tropical forests. The main priorities for choosing places for elephants to live are the following criteria: availability of food resources, water and shade.

Read about the diet of elephants in the article.

Where does the Indian elephant live?

Indian The elephant was distributed throughout South Asia. IN wild environment he lived along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers all the way to the Malay Peninsula. Some herds were even found near the Himalayas and along the Yangtze River in China. In addition to mainland Asia, elephants lived on the islands of Sumatra, Sri Lanka and Java.

Now Asiatic the elephant is found in the wild only partially in North-East and South India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia (Borneo), Nepal, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia (Sumatra), China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Myanmar, Brunei and Laos.

“Elephants are useful animals,” said Sharikov in Bulgakov’s novel “ dog's heart" The largest land mammal, a giant among animals. They are the main characters of many myths and legends, since their lives until recently were surrounded by an aura of mystery and uncertainty.

Description of the elephant

Elephants belong to the order Proboscis, family Elephantidae. Characteristic external signs Elephants have large ears and a long trunk, which they use like a hand. Tusks, which are hunted by poachers for valuable ivory, are an important attribute in appearance.

Appearance

All elephants unite big sizes– their height, depending on the type, can range from two to four meters. The average body length is 4.5 meters, but some particularly large specimens can grow up to 7.5 m. About 7 tons, African elephants can gain weight up to 12 tons. The body is elongated and massive, covered with dense gray or gray-fawn skin. The skin, about 2 cm thick, is lumpy, uneven, folded in places, without sebaceous and sweat glands. There is almost no hair, or it is very short in the form of bristles. Newborn elephants have thick hair, and over time the hairs fall out or break off.

Large fan-shaped ears are very mobile. Elephants fan themselves with them to cool their skin, and also use them to ward off mosquitoes. Ear sizes are important- they are larger among the southern inhabitants and smaller among the northern ones. Since the skin does not contain sweat glands that could be used to cool the body temperature through the secretion of sweat, the ears serve as a thermostat for the entire body. Their skin is very thin, penetrated by a dense capillary network. The blood in them cools and spreads throughout the body. In addition, there is a special gland near the ears, the secretion of which is produced during the mating season. By waving their ears, males spread the smell of this secretion through the air over long distances.

This is interesting! The pattern of veins on the surface of an elephant's ears is individual, like human fingerprints.

The trunk is not a modified nose, but a formation from an elongated nose and upper lip. This muscular formation serves both as an organ of smell and as a kind of “hand”: with its help, elephants feel various objects on the ground, pick grass, branches, fruits, suck up water and inject it into the mouth or spray the body. Some of the sounds that elephants make can be amplified and modified by using the trunk as a resonator. At the end of the trunk there is a small muscular process that works like a finger.

Thick, columnar-shaped, five-fingered limbs, fingers covered with common skin. Each leg has hooves - 5 or 4 on the front legs, and 3 or 4 on the hind legs. There is a pad of fat in the center of the foot that flattens with each step, increasing the area of ​​contact with the ground. This allows elephants to walk almost silently. A peculiarity of the structure of the legs of elephants is the presence of two kneecaps, which is why the animals cannot jump. Teeth are constantly replaced.

Only the upper third incisors - the famous elephant tusks - remain permanent. Absent in females asian elephants. Tusks grow and wear off with age. The oldest elephants have the largest and thickest tusks. Tail approx. equal to length limbs and is equipped with a hard hair brush at the end. They fan themselves with it, driving away insects. When moving with the herd, baby elephants often hold onto the tail of their mother, aunt or nanny with their trunk.

Character and lifestyle

Elephants gather in groups of 5 to 30 individuals. The group is ruled by an adult female matriarch, the oldest and wisest. After her death, the matriarch's place is taken by the second eldest - usually a sister or daughter. In groups, all animals are related to each other. The group consists mainly of females; males, as soon as they grow up, are expelled from the herd. However, they do not go far, they stay nearby or go to another group of females. Females treat males favorably only when mating season comes.

Members of family herds have well-developed mutual assistance and mutual assistance. Everyone plays their role - there is a kind of manger, kindergarten and school. They treat each other with kindness, raise children together, and if one of the herd dies, they are very sad. Even when they come across the remains of an elephant that did not belong to the family, the elephants stop and freeze, honoring the memory of the deceased relative. In addition, elephants have funeral rite. Family members carry the deceased animal to the pit, blow a trumpet as a sign of farewell and respect, and then throw branches and grass over it. There are known cases when elephants buried found ones in the same way. dead people. Sometimes animals remain near the grave for several days.

African elephants They sleep standing, leaning on each other. Adult males may sleep with their heavy tusks resting on a termite mound, tree, or log. Indian elephants sleep lying on the ground. Animals sleep about four hours a day, although some Africans sleep with short breaks of forty minutes. The rest of the time they move around in search of food and caring for themselves and their relatives.

Due to the size of their eyes, elephants see poorly, but at the same time they hear perfectly and have an excellent sense of smell. According to research by zoologists studying the behavior of elephants, they use infrasounds that are heard over vast distances. The sound range in the elephant language is enormous. Despite their enormous size and apparent awkwardness in their movements, elephants are extremely active and at the same time cautious animals. They usually move at a low speed - about 6 km/h, but can reach up to 30-40 km/h. They can swim and move along the bottom of reservoirs, with only their trunk above the water for breathing.

How long do elephants live?

Elephant Intelligence

Despite the size of their brain, which is relatively small, elephants are considered one of the most intelligent animals. They recognize themselves in the reflection of the mirror, which indicates the presence of self-awareness. These are the second animals, besides monkeys, that use various objects as tools. For example, they use tree branches as a fan or fly swatter.

Elephants have exceptional visual, olfactory and auditory memory - they remember watering and feeding places for many kilometers around, remember people, recognize their relatives after long separation. In captivity they are tolerant of mistreatment, but can eventually become angry. It is known that elephants experience various emotions - sadness, joy, sadness, rage, anger. Also, they are able to laugh.

This is interesting! Elephants can be both left-handed and right-handed. This is determined by the grinding of the tusk - it is ground down on the side that the elephant uses most often.

They are easy to train in captivity, which is why they are often used in circuses, and in India as riding and working animals. There are cases where trained elephants painted pictures. And in Thailand there are even elephant football championships.

Types of elephants

There are currently four species of elephants, belonging to two genera - the African elephant and the Indian elephant.. There is still debate among zoologists about the different subspecies of elephants and whether they should be considered a separate species or left in the subspecies category. As of 2018, there is the following classification of living species:

• Genus
  • View of Savannah Elephant
  • Forest Elephant View
• Genus
  • Species Indian or Asian elephant
    • Subspecies Bornean elephant
    • Subspecies Sumatran elephant
    • Subspecies Ceylon elephant

All African elephants are distinguished from their Indian relatives by the shape and size of their ears. African elephants have larger, more rounded ears. Tusks—modified upper incisors—of African elephants are worn by both males and females, and sexual dimorphism is often pronounced—the diameter and length of the incisors in males exceeds those in females. The tusks of the Indian elephant are straighter and shorter. There are differences in the structure of the trunk - Indian elephants have only one “finger”, African elephants have two. The most high point in the body of the African elephant - the crown of the head, while in the Indian elephant the head is lowered below the shoulders.

• forest elephant- a species of elephant from the genus of African elephants, previously considered a subspecies savannah elephant. Their height on average does not exceed two and a half meters. They have fairly thick, hard hair and round, massive ears. The body is gray-fawn with a brown tint due to the color of the coat.
• Savannah elephant, according to the Guinness Book of Records, is the most close-up view land mammals and the third largest animal on the planet. The height of elephants at the withers can reach 3-4 meters, and the average body weight is about 6 tons. Sexual dimorphism in the size of the body and tusks is pronounced - females are somewhat smaller and have short tusks compared to males.
• Indian elephant- the second of the currently existing species of elephants. It is built more massively compared to the African one. Has shorter and thicker limbs, drooping head and ears. Covered with more hair than African elephants. The back is convex and humpbacked. There are two bulges on the forehead. There are unpigmented pink areas on the skin. There are albino elephants, which serve as objects of cult and worship.
• Ceylon elephant- a subspecies of the Asian elephant. It grows up to 3 m high. It differs from the Indian elephant proper in the absence of tusks even in males. The head is very large in relation to the body with a discolored spot at the base of the trunk and on the forehead.
• Sumatran elephant It also has almost no tusks and is characterized by less skin depigmentation. Their height rarely reaches more than three meters.
• Bornean elephant- the smallest of the subspecies, sometimes called the dwarf elephant. They differ from their relatives in having a long and thick tail, almost reaching to the ground. The tusks are straighter, and the hump on the back is more pronounced than in other subspecies.

Range, habitats

African elephants live in southern Africa in Sudan, Nambia, Kenya, Zimbabwe and many other countries. Area Indian elephants extends to the northeast and southern part India, Thailand, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, the islands of Sri Lanka, Sumatra, Ceylon. Since all species and subspecies are listed in the Red Book, animals live in different nature reserves. African elephants prefer the shady zone of savannas, avoiding open desert landscapes and overgrown dense forests.

They can be found in primary deciduous and tropical rainforests. Some populations are found in the dry savannas of Nambia, southern Sahara, but are rather the exception general rule. Indian elephants live on tall grass plains, bush thickets and dense bamboo forests. An important aspect in the life and habitats of elephants is water. They need to drink at least once every two days, in addition to this they need almost daily bathing.

Elephant diet

Elephants are quite voracious animals. They can consume up to half a ton of food per day. They depend on their habitat, but in general they are absolutely herbivorous animals. They feed on grass, wild fruits and berries (bananas, apples), roots and rhizomes, roots, leaves, branches. African elephants can use their tusks to peel off the bark of trees and eat the wood of baobab trees. Indian elephants love ficus leaves. They can also cause damage to cultivated corn and sweet potato plantations.

The lack of salt is compensated by licks coming to the surface of the earth, or by digging it out of the ground. The lack of minerals in their diet is compensated by eating bark and wood. In captivity, elephants are fed hay and greens, pumpkins, apples, carrots, beets, and bread. For encouragement they give sweets - sugar, cookies, gingerbread. Due to overfeeding with carbohydrates, animals kept in captivity experience problems with metabolism and the gastrointestinal tract.

Reproduction and offspring

There is no seasonality in mating periods. Various females in the herd are ready to mate in different time. Males ready for mating are very excited and aggressive for two to three weeks. Their parotid glands secrete a special secretion that evaporates from the ears and the smell of which is carried by the wind over long distances. In India, this elephantine state is called must.

Important! During must, males are extremely aggressive. Many cases of attacks by male elephants on humans occur during the musth period.

Females, ready for mating, are somewhat separated from the herd, and their calling calls can be heard for many kilometers. Males are attracted to such females and start battles for the right to continue their lineage. Usually fights are not anything serious - the opponents spread their ears to appear larger and trumpet loudly. The one who is bigger and louder wins. If the forces are equal, the males begin to cut down trees and pick up fallen trunks to show their strength. Sometimes the winner chases the loser away several kilometers.

Lasts 21-22 weeks. Childbirth takes place in the company of other females, the more experienced ones help and protect the giving birth from the encroachment of predators. Most often, one baby elephant is born, but sometimes there are cases of twins being born. The newborn weighs about a hundred kilograms. After a couple of hours, the baby elephants rise to their feet and kiss their mother’s chest. Immediately after the birth, the family loudly welcomes the newborn - the elephants trumpet and scream, announcing to the world about the addition to the family.

Important! Elephants' nipples are not located in the groin, as in many mammals, but on the chest, near the front legs, as in primates. Baby elephants suck milk with their mouths, not their trunks.

Feeding with mother's milk lasts up to two years, and all female elephants that produce milk feed the elephants. Already at six months old, baby elephants add plant foods to their diet. Sometimes baby elephants feed on their mother's feces because only a certain percentage of the food consumed is digested. It is easier for a baby elephant to digest plant elements that have already been treated with food enzymes.

Elephant calves are cared for by their mothers, aunts and grandmothers until they are about 5 years old, but the affection remains for almost their entire lives. Mature males are expelled from the herd, and females remain, making up for the natural decline of the herd. Elephants become sexually mature at approximately 8-12 years of age.