ELEPHANTS:
} The elephant as we all know it, is the largest and heaviest terrestrial mammal in the world.
} They are extremely intelligent and very powerful animals.
} They alter their surroundings to the benefit of the whole ecosystem.
} They are very adaptable as they are able to vary their diet according to what is available.
} They easily overcome adverse conditions by simply moving to new areas.
} This acquires them to travel long distances to take advantage of remote resources
} Their tusks are modified upper incisor teeth that grow continuously.
} They use their tusks as weapons of defence, they are always kept sharp.
} Older bull use their tusks less as their competitive spirit wanes.
} Largest recorded tusk in the Lowveld weighed 64.3kg.
} The longest tusk on record had a length of 3,55m.
} Telling female and males apart is the fact that bulls have internal testes.
} Younger males and females can be separated by looking at the forehead which is angle in cows and rounded in bulls.
} Males also have a straighter back profile than females. Cows have 2 enlarged mammary glands between their front legs.
} Bulls often relax their penises which hang down conspicuously.
} Elephants communicate through body posturing or vocally by use of trumpeting or even screaming to indicate anger or excitement.
} Trumpeting originates in the larynx and is resonated in the trunk.
} Most communications takes place through rumbling.
} Elephants are highly social animals.
} Elephants practise a matriarchal society.
} Bull leave the herd once they reach puberty(12-14y).
} Elephants are keystone species, meaning that they influence the healthy functioning of ecosystems and even the survival of particular species.
} They are the driving force in the maintenance of the bushveld habitat type through the cropping of woody vegetation which prevents it reaching a forest climax.
} Elephants are destructive feeders and these apparent wasteful actions have positive ecological repercussions.
} Fallen trees provide browse at ground level to smaller animals, they also create microhabitats for breeding and survival of ground animals.
} Elephants have unique teeth.
} Every knew molar is larger than the previous in proportion to the elephants changing body size.
} An elephants trunk is an unique apparatus not shared by any other mammal.
} It evolved to assist elephants with the processing of the large amounts of different kinds of food that it eats.
} Trunk can be used as a arm, nose and a straw. the trunk is powerful enough to break stems or strip whole branches of their foliage.
} So complex is the fine control in operating a trunk that young elephants take time to master the skill, clumsy flopping it around until 3years.
} Elephants have 5 toenails on their front feet and 4 on their hind feet.
} They use their toenails when feeding.
} Elephants also use their feet to scrape together piles of fruit or to dislodge short grass which can then be scooped up with the trunk.
} A particular tinaeid moth is found only in regions where elephants are found.
} They specialise in nesting in the sole of a dead elephant’s foot.
} The hard curled up sole is long lasting and provides a safe haven for the developing of eggs.
} Elephants walk on their toes.
} The ‘heel’ is supported with a cartilaginous pad that acts as a shock and noise absorber.
} The pad splays out when the sole of the foot makes contact with the ground and shrinks again when the foot is lifted.
} The forefeet are larger to support the enormous weight of the head, trunk and tusks.
} The ears of an African elephant are enormous.
} They are used for hearing, express moods and also play a vital role in thermoregulation.
} The ears comprise 20% of the elephants entire surface area.
} Thinnest skin covers the ears, its well supplied with blood capillaries that runs close to the ground.
} An elephant can pump all of his blood trough his ears every 20 min.
} They flap their ears or spray dust, mud or water behind their ears to cool the blood in the capillaries off which then flows back into their bodies.
} Cooler days they will keep their ears close to their bodies conserving the heat in the capillaries, this warms the heat and sends it back trough the body.
} This helps them control their body temperature.
} Elephants have an array of acute sensory perceptions to compensate for relatively limited eyesight.
} Their eyes are the same size as a humans and only allow clear focusing up to about 50m.
} Large ears actuate excellent hearing.
} Their sense of smell is sharp, much more focused than that of a dog’s.
} Use their trunks to collect scents, these scents stimulate the olfactory tissue.
} Chemical clues collected can also be placed into the Chemo-receptors of the Jacobsen on the palate for deciphering.
} The weight of an elephant’s enormous head is reduced by honeycomb-like formations in the skull.
} The skin of an elephant is about 4cm thick (legs, forehead and back).
} From early ages female elephants practise mothering, where they guide and assist calves and teaching them what to eat and also protecting them.
} Young bulls spend time practising head-butting and play mounting to establish rank and develop skills of dominancy.
} The concept of an elephant graveyard is much disputed.
} Elephants on their last set of molars spend lots of time at water where the food is softer.
} Several old elephants will die at the same waterhole, giving the impression of a graveyard.
} Elephants are believed to grieve their dead as they movingly pick up tusks, skulls and bones of dead elephants.
They will also go to the aid of sick or wounded members of the herd
