elaphant of africa

ELEPHANT is the largest living terrestrial animal, There are two types of elephant, the African elephant (Loxodonta Africana) and the Asia elephant, the later being smaller in size. The species have big round flapping ears with large blood vessels near ear surface which help the elephant to lose body hear and hence cool the body.

      Elephant have the upper lip fused with nose and elongated to form a trunk is useful as it act as a hand to touch, hold and pull things, breathing, sound amplifier and as container which enables an elephant to drink water

There is sexual dimorphism between male and female elephant where males are bigger than females weighing up to 6 tonnes and 3 tonnes respectively, The upper incisors are modified and fused together to form two tusk one on the right and the other on the lift and develop outward up 2.5 meter and can weigh even more than 45 kg.

Elephant tusk are used in various ways; however, there elephants that have no tusks. The fore-legs have four-toed feet and three-toed feet on rear legs. Elephant do not run instead walking fastest walking big mammals on land
         Elephant communicate by touching using  trunks, however vocalization is also used when they are in a distance, and the sound has smaller hearing range beyond that human. The species have poor eyes sight but acute sense of smell which, apart from having good memory. it helps to locate ecological need such as water and detect carnivores from afar.

These largest mammals on earth feed on various material from wild shorter to taller grasses, shrub, tree leaves, and bark. They sometime, also go for crops such as maize, bananas, rice, sugar cane and water melons. African elephant can eat up 0.5 tonne of vegetations per day, although the digestive system is inefficiency and hence little amount less than 50% is absorbed

   Most of the elephant time is spent on eating and every short time for resting. The trunk plays the vital role on feeding as it is used to uproot grasses, shrubs and small trees and throw them in the mouth. A trunk pulls down tree  branches an d together with the tusks, help debark and tear tree
        Elephant become matured and fertile between 25-45 year. A females gives  birth to one calf and rarely  to twins. Usually reproduction take place in wet season and gestation lasts for two years. The elephant has five corpus luteum foetuses different from one corpus luteum to most mammals which give more time for brain and trunk to develop,

  The calf is born with 120 kg weight. After birth, the newborn calf is surrounded by member families caressing it. The calf depend much on its mother for support as it is unable to stand and fully control its delicate trunk.