Asian
Elephants are smaller than their African cousins standing between 2 and 3 metres
at their shoulder and weighing between 2000 and 5000 kilograms. Newborns weigh
in at close to 100 kilograms. To maintain this mass they consume between 100
and 200 kilograms of food per day and up to 200 litres of water. You time job
to clean up after them. They only sleep for about six hours per day and the
rest of their time is taken up with snacking. It takes time to put that much
food in your mouth! Ele's can't sweat so they cool themselves down via an extensive
network of veins in their ears. These veins take their blood close to the surface
of their skin which is then cooled by air temperature. They can increase the
effectiveness of this cooling system when they
are particularly hot by flapping
their ears. They also enjoy swimming to cool down. The
skin on an elephants head back is about 2.5 centimetres thick and is extremely
sensitive - they can feel a mosquito biting them. They cover themselves with
dirt and mud to protect themselves from biting and stinging insects.
The average elephant trunk weighs in
at 140 kilograms and is made up of more than 100,000 different muscles (compare
this to 640 muscles in the entire human body!) It takes them a few years to
master its use but as they get older they are able to lift 600kgs with their
trunk alone. Unsurprisingly they have been called the best smellers in the
world. The tip of their trunk is extremely sensitive.
They have six sets of teeth to see them
through their lifetime.
When
one set of molars are ground down they are replaced by another set. When their
sixth set is gone an elephant will usually starve to death. This is a major
contributing factor as to why wild elephants live for around sixty years but
captive elephant's average an eighty year lifespan - they are not so reliant
on chewing roots and other particularly tough food sources during times of low
food supply.
Elephants have relatively poor eyesight and can only see clearly for a distance
of about ten metres.
Through
extensive behavioral study it has been identified that elephants are emotionally
sensitive creatures. They celebrate reunions with old friends, live in a tightly
knit matriarchal society and they grieve for the dead. A female elephant will
defend her calf to the death. They have extremely individualized personalities.
The IUCN has classified them as endangered on the Endangered Species Red List.
