06/08/2023
ELEPHANT 🐘
Family Elephantidae, largest living land animal, characterized by its long trunk (elongated upper lip and nose), columnar legs, and huge head with temporal glands and wide, flat ears. Elephants are grayish to brown in colour, and their body hair is sparse and coarse.They are found most often in savannas, grasslands, and forests but occupy a wide range of habitats, including deserts, swamps, and highlands in tropical and subtropical regions of Africa and Asia.
"SCENTIFIC NAME OF ELEPHANTS SPECIES"
African (Loxodonta africana) and Asian (Elephas maximus) elephants.
1-......AFRICAN ELEPHANT
The African savanna, or bush, elephant (Loxodonta africana) weighs up to 8,000 kg (9 tons) and stands 3 to 4 metres (10 to 13 feet) at the shoulder. The African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), which lives in rainforests, was recognized as a separate species in 2000 and is smaller than the savanna elephant.
2-.......ASIAN ELEPHANT
The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) weighs about 5,500 kg and has a shoulder height of up to 3.5 metres. The Asian elephant includes three subspecies: the Indian, or mainland (E. maximus indicus), the Sumatran (E. maximus sumatranus), and the Sri Lankan (E. maximus maximus). African elephants have much larger ears, which are used to dissipate body heat.
"IMPORTANT ORGAN"
Elephants use the trunk like a hand in other ways as well.Breathing, drinking, and eating are all vital functions of the trunk. Most breathing is performed through the trunk rather than the mouth. Elephants drink by sucking as much as 10 litres (2.6 gallons) of water into the trunk and then squirting it into the mouth. They eat by detaching grasses, leaves, and fruit with the end of the trunk and using it to place this vegetation into the mouth. The trunk is also used to collect dust or grass for spraying onto themselves, presumably for protection against insect bites and the sun. If danger is suspected, elephants raise and swivel the trunk as if it were “an olfactory periscope,” possibly sniffing the air for information.
"VOCALISATIONS"
Elephants produce two types of vocalization by modifying the size of the nostrils as air is passed through the trunk.
Vocalizations originate in the larynx and a special structure associated with it, the pharyngeal pouch. In the vast majority of mammals, the throat contains nine bones connected in a boxlike structure, the hyoid apparatus, that supports the tongue and the voice box. Elephants have only five bones in the hyoid apparatus, and the gap formed by the missing bones is filled by muscles, tendons, and ligaments. These looser attachments allow the larynx a great degree of freedom and enable the formation of the pharyngeal pouch just behind the tongue. This unique structure facilitates sound production and has voluntary muscles that allow the pouch to be used as a resonating chamber for calls emitted at frequencies below the range of human hearing. These low-frequency (5–24 hertz) calls are responded to by other elephants up to 4 km (2.5 miles) away. Low-frequency sound waves travel through the ground as well as the air, and results of experiments indicate that elephants can detect infrasonic calls as seismic waves. Elephants can produce a variety of other sounds by beating the trunk on hard ground, a tree, or even against their own tusks.
In addition to sound production, the pharyngeal pouch is presumed to be used for carrying water.
"TEETH Of ELEPHANT"
Elephants have six sets of cheek teeth (molars and premolars) in their lifetime, but they do not erupt all at once. At birth an elephant has two or three pairs of cheek teeth in each jaw. New teeth develop from behind and slowly move forward as worn teeth fragment in front and either fall out or are swallowed and excreted. Each new set is successively longer, wider, and heavier. The last molars can measure nearly 40 cm (almost 16 inches) long and weigh more than 5 kg (about 11 pounds). Only the last four molars or their remains are present after about 60 years of age.
🛑Sometimes tooth loss is the cause of death, as it brings on starvation.
Elephant tusks are enlarged incisor teeth made of ivory. In the African elephant both the male and the female possess tusks, whereas in the Asian elephant it is mainly the male that has tusks.
"REPRODUCTION"
Elephants reach sexual maturity early in their second decade of life. African elephants become sexually mature at age 10–12, whereas Asian elephants become sexually mature about age 14. It is during that period that males leave their natal herd (herd of origin) to live either singly or in small herds with other males. Females, in contrast, remain with their natal herd for their whole lives. Despite living apart, adult male and female elephants form short-lived mating or feeding associations with one another.
*Gestation is the longest of any mammal (18–22 months). The newborn elephant is about a metre (3.3 feet) tall and weighs about 100 kg (220 pounds). It suckles by using the mouth, not the trunk, at mammary glands located in the chest region.
Asian elephant: 18 – 22 months
African bush elephant: 22 months
*Weaning is a long process and sometimes continues until the mother can no longer tolerate the pokes of her offspring’s emerging tusks. After weaning, many hours of each day are spent eating.
"MIGRATION OF ELEPHANTS"
Elephants migrate seasonally according to the availability of food and water. Memory plays an important role during this time, as they remember locations of water supplies along migration routes. Intelligence has also been observed in conjunction with memory.
Although unable to jump or gallop, elephants can reach a top speed of 40 km (25 miles) per hour. Their feet are well adapted to carrying their great weight. The heel is partially elevated, and below it is a thick fatty, fibrous wedge of tissue protected by thick skin. It is not easy for elephants to lie down and get up; they sleep lying down for three to four hours during the night. While standing, elephants doze for short periods but do not sleep deeply.
"CONSUMPTION"
An adult elephant consumes about 100 kg of food and 100 litres (26 gallons) of water per day; these amounts can double for a hungry and thirsty individual. Such consumption makes elephants an important ecological factor; they substantially affect and even alter the ecosystems they live in.Elephants can live to 80 years of age or more in captivity but live to only about 60 in the wild. Evidence does not substantiate the existence of so-called “elephant graveyards,” where elephants supposedly gather to die.
"POPULATION OF ELEPHANTS"
At the beginning of the 21st century, fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants remained in the wild. Threatened by habitat loss and poaching, Asian and African elephants are listed as endangered species. From 1979 to 1989 the number of African elephants in the wild was reduced by more than half, from 1,300,000 to 600,000, partly a result of commercial demand for ivory. However, in some parts of Africa elephants are abundant, and culling is practiced in some reserves to prevent habitat destruction. A nine-year ban on the ivory trade was lifted in 1997.
ANCIENT USE OF ELEPHANTS
For many centuries the Asian elephant has been important as a ceremonial and draft animal.Now a days they are kept in zoo for people amusement.
🛑"Important infectious diseases of Elephants"
Infectious diseases of elephants include tuberculosis, haemorrhagic septicaemia, trypanosomiasis, pyroplasmosis, foot and mouth disease, pox, bacillary necrosis, salmonellosis, streptococcosis, babesiosis, helminthiasis and ectoparasitism, in addition to the previously mentioned rabies and tetanus.
Q. What is elephantiasis?
Lymphatic filariasis, commonly known as elephantiasis, is a painful and profoundly disfiguring disease. It is caused by infection with parasites classified as nematodes (roundworms) of the family Filariodidea that are transmitted through the bites of infected mosquitos.
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