Elephant

About the elephant

Elephants are the largest living land animals and the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae and the order Proboscidea, whose extinct relatives include the mammoths and mastodons. Three species are recognized today: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. All three share a set of unmistakable features — a long, muscular trunk, tusks, large ear flaps, thick pillar-like legs, and tough, sensitive grey skin. African elephants are distinguished from Asian elephants by their larger ears and concave backs, while Asian elephants have smaller ears and backs that are convex or level.

The trunk is an unusually versatile structure. It forms from the fusion of the nose and upper lip during early fetal development and contains up to 150,000 separate muscle fascicles with no bone and very little fat, giving it near-unlimited flexibility through bending, twisting, and stretching. Elephants use the trunk to bring food and water to the mouth, grasp objects, and reach items up to 7 m (23 ft) high; it is strong enough to lift up to 350 kg (770 lb) yet precise enough to crack a peanut shell without crushing the seed inside. African elephants have two finger-like extensions at the trunk's tip for plucking small food, while Asian elephants have only one and rely more on wrapping the trunk around an item. The trunk also acts as a powerful siphon for drinking and bathing, and elephants use it as a snorkel when swimming. Their sense of smell, carried through the trunk, may be four times as sharp as a bloodhound's.

Tusks are elongated incisor teeth that serve as both weapons and tools for digging and moving objects; elephants typically have 26 teeth in total, including the tusks, 12 deciduous premolars, and 12 molars, and unlike most mammals their teeth are not replaced by new ones emerging vertically from the jaw. Large ear flaps help regulate body temperature — elephants are homeotherms that maintain an average body temperature around 36°C (97°F) — since warm blood flowing through the numerous capillaries in the ears releases heat, an effect increased by flapping. Of the three species, African bush elephants live in the hottest climates and have the largest ears. Their skeleton is made up of 326 to 351 bones, and rib count differs by species too: African elephants have 21 pairs of ribs, while Asian elephants have 19 or 20. The skull contains air-filled cavities that give it a honeycomb-like appearance and reduce its weight while keeping it strong enough to withstand the stress of fighting or using the tusks. Elephants are dichromats that see well in dim light but poorly in bright light, and because they lack tear ducts, a gland in the eye socket keeps the eye moist instead.

Behavior and diet

Elephants are herbivores that stay near water sources whenever they are available, and they are considered a keystone species because of the outsized effect they have on the landscapes they live in. Their social structure is described as a fission-fusion society, in which separate family groups periodically come together to socialize. Females, known as cows, typically live in these family groups, which can be a single mother with her calves or several related females and their young. The oldest female in a group generally serves as its matriarch and leader.

Males, called bulls, leave their family groups once they reach puberty and afterward live either alone or with other males, generally returning to family groups only when searching for a mate. Periodically, bulls enter a state called musth, marked by a spike in testosterone and aggression that helps them compete with other males for dominance and reproductive success. Calves stay at the center of attention within their family groups and depend on their mothers for as long as three years.

Elephants communicate through touch, sight, smell, and sound, including infrasound and seismic signals that can travel long distances beyond human hearing. Their intelligence has been compared to that of primates and cetaceans, and elephants appear to have self-awareness and may show concern for dying or dead members of their own kind. In the wild, elephants can live up to 70 years.

Range and habitat

Elephants are found across sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, living in a range of habitats that includes savannahs, forests, deserts, and marshes. Across all of these environments, elephants tend to stay close to water when it is available. They're considered a keystone species because of the impact they have on their environments.

Conservation status

Conservation status differs across the three living elephant species. The African bush elephant and the Asian elephant are both listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, while the African forest elephant is listed as Critically Endangered. One of the largest threats to elephant populations is the ivory trade, which drives poaching for tusks, alongside habitat destruction and conflict with local human populations as elephant and human ranges increasingly overlap. Elephants have long been used as working animals in Asia, and in the past were also used in warfare; today their continued use in circuses and other entertainment, and their display in zoos, remains controversial.