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African ElephantThe African elephant has long held a special place in the heart of humans. Being at once powerful, huge and dangerous, these animals are intelligent beyond expectations, loving and majestic. This tantalizing combination of beauty, brains and brawn makes the elephant one of the favorites in zoos, fairs and shows. The African elephant is the closest we have to elephants as they were in their heydays. Once they ranged regally from the south of the Sahara to the north of South Africa. Today, they are mostly sighted only in reserves and parks. African elephants are natives of a wide variety of habitats – the semi-desert scrub, dense forest regions and open savannas. On an average, African elephants reach about 10 feet at their shoulders and weigh roughly 10 tons. Males are larger than females.
Both males and females have tusks though the females’ tusks are smaller in size. The skin is unbelievably rough and almost totally hairless. |
The main point that separates the African elephants from their Indian cousins is the size of their ears. African elephants have stupendous ears – about 5 feet long and shaped almost like the continent of Africa, these ears have important roles to play. The ears are crisscrossed by blood vessels and help the elephant to lose excess body heat. They also aid in hearing.
In the wild, African elephants feed mainly on grass, foliage, bark, roots, shrubs and soil. The soil is rich in mineral content. Fully grown elephants eat a lot of food and eat up to 8% of their body weight every day. To achieve this amazing feat, they spend almost every waking hour eating – that’s almost 18 hours of non-stop eating. Elephants use their trunks as a straw while drinking water and can drink up about 50 gallons of water in a few minutes. Obviously, nothing about the elephant is small!
African elephants have a close knit family with social bonding being an important part of their family life. Females become sexually active by ten years of age and continue to reproduce till they reach 55-60 years. Mostly the females will have calves in 5-year intervals. Males reach sexual maturity when they are about 10 years, but they start breeding only when they reach 30 years or so. This is because females choose males that are strong and are able to head the herd. To be able to do this, the male elephant has to grow strong and big.
Young calves stick with their mothers and other females in the herd. They suckle with their mouths and may not be weaned till the next calf arrives. It is from the mothers that baby elephants learn herd behavior and other necessary traits. While adult elephants do not have any natural predators, baby elephants are sometimes preyed upon by lions and hyenas. Almost all physical growth is completed by 15 years of age, mental maturity and development tales more time. The African elephants have 4 molars and each set is replaced five times. Death occurs when the last set of molars have worn away bringing in starvation.
For all its grandeur, majesty and size the African elephant has not been able to hold its own against its worst enemy – man. Hunted mercilessly and killed indiscriminately for its tusks, elephant population has been steadily declining over the last 100 years. What complicates matters is that elephants are not very easy to keep in zoos because of the quantity of food they require. Beautiful and lovable, it is indeed mankind’s worst tragedy that it has to look at this large pachyderm and imagine a day when these animals will roam only within enclosed reserves.
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