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| Elephants | ||||||||||
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| Scientific classification | ||||||||||
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| Genera and Species | ||||||||||
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Loxodonta Loxodonta cyclotis |
Proboscidea is an order including only one family, Elephantidae or the elephants, with 3 species: the Savannah Elephant, the Forest Elephant and the Asian Elephant (formerly known as the Indian Elephant). During the period of the ice age there were more, now extinct species, including the elephant-like mammothA mammoth is any of a number of an extinct genus of elephant, often with long curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair. They inhabited the northern regions of the world, in Europe, northern Asia, and North America. Many types of mamm and mastodont and the "shovel tuskers", the platybelodonWuhan, Hubei Province, China A platybelodon is a large, extinct herbivorous mammal related to the elephant (order Proboscidea). They lived during the Miocene Epoch, about 15 million years ago. It fed in the swampy areas of grassy savannas, using its joine and amebelodonAmbeleodon was a large herbivorous mammal. It lived during the early middle Miocene epoch, about 15 million years ago. In many ways, it is similar to the platybelodon. Both animals are known informally as "shovel tuskers" because of their shovel-like teet.
Elephants are the largest living land mammals. At birth it is common for an elephant calf to weigh 100 kg (225 pounds). It takes 20 to 22 months for a baby elephant to develop, the longest gestation period of any land animal. The largest elephant ever recorded was a male shot in Angola in 1974, that weighed 12 tonnes (13.5 tons).
An elephant's most obvious characteristic is the trunk, a much elongated combination of nose and upper lip, which can be used to grab objects such as food. Elephants also have tusks, large teeth coming out of their upper jaws. Elephant tusks are the major source of ivory, but because of the increased rarity of elephants, hunting and ivory trade is now illegal.
Elephants have three premolar s and three molars in each quadrant. They erupt in order from front to back, then wear down as the elephant chews its highly fibrous diet. When the last molar has worn out, the elephant typically dies of malnutrition; elephants in captivity can be kept alive longer than that by feeding them preground food. The molars of the African elephant are loxodont, hence the genus name.
Skin diseases often occur, from which they try to protected themselves by taking mud baths, shower one another with water from the trunk, and rolling in dust. The skin can therefore appear brown or reddish, but the natural color is light gray. Their significant coarse and wrinkled skin is about 1 in. thick, sparsely bristled (with varieties for the Asian and the African kinds), a thickness they disadvantageousely developed instead of pigment which causes the color. There are also rare white elephants, who often have blue eyes. Otherwise elephants have brown, surrounded by long lashes.They have large ears that wave for cooling, and a relatively small tail with a brush at its tip.