Rebecca Smith
How Much Does A African Elephant Weigh – African elephants are members of the order Loxodonta which includes two living species of elephants, the African forest elephant (L. africana) and the lesser African forest elephant (L. cyclotis). Both are grey-skinned, gregarious herbivores, but differ in the size and color of their teeth and the shape and size of their ears and skull.
Both species are considered critically endangered on the IUCN Red List. as of 2021, the forest elephant is considered endangered, and the forest elephant is considered critically endangered. They are threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, and poaching for the illegal ivory trade is also a threat in many countries in the region.
How Much Does A African Elephant Weigh
Loxodonta is one of two extant elephants in the Elephantidae family. The name refers to its jelly-like molars. Fossil remains of the species Loxodonta have been excavated in Africa, dating back to the Middle Pliocene.
African Elephant, Facts And Photos
Comparison of forest (left) and forest (right) elephant skulls in frontal view. Note the shorter and wider head of L. cyclotis, with a concave rather than a convex forehead.
The first scientific description of the African elephant was written in 1797 by Johann Friedrich Blumbach, who proposed the scientific name Elephas africanus.
Loxodontus was proposed as the generic name for the African elephant by Frédéric Cuvier in 1825. This name refers to the diamond enamel of the molar teeth, which differs significantly from the rounded shape of the enamel of the Asian elephant molar.
Elephas (Loxodonta) cyclotis was proposed by Paul Matshi in 1900, who described three zoological species of African elephants from Cameroon whose skulls differed in shape from elephant skulls collected elsewhere in Africa.
The Asian Elephant
In 1936, Glover Morrill All considered this elephant as a separate species and called it the “forest elephant”.
Since then, morphological and genetic analyzes have provided evidence of species-level differences between the African forest elephant and the African forest elephant.
In 1907, Richard Lydecker proposed six subspecies of African elephants based on the different sizes and shapes of their ears.
A third species, the West African elephant, has also been suggested but needs confirmation. This lineage is believed to have been isolated from the others for 2.4 million years.
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Between the late 18th and 21st centuries, the following extinct African elephants were described from fossils:
Analysis of nuclear DNA sequences indicates that the genetic divergence between forest and forest African elephants dates back to 2.6-5.6 million years ago. The divergence between the Asian elephant and woolly mammoths is estimated to have been between 2.5 and 5.4 million years, strongly supporting their status as a separate species. The African forest elephant was found to have a high degree of genetic diversity, perhaps reflecting the periodic fragmentation of its habitat during Pleistocene climate change.
The flow of Ge between the two African elephant species was examined at 21 sites. The analysis revealed that several African bush elephants carried mitochondrial DNA from African forest elephants, indicating that they had hybridized in the savanna-forest transition zone in ancient times.
DNA from the European straight-necked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) shows that the extinct elephant gus Palaeoloxodon is closely related to and hybridized with African elephants, with the mitochondrial genome and more than 30% of the nuclear genome of P. antiquus from a lineage closer to African forest elephants than to African forest elephants.
Animals Bigger Than An African Elephant
African elephants have gray folded skin up to 30 millimeters (1.2 in) thick covered with sparse dark brown to black hair. Short tactile hairs grow on the trunk, which has two finger-like processes at the tip, while Asian elephants have only one.
Their large ears help reduce body heat. Blowing them creates air bubbles and exposes the insides of the ears, where large blood vessels increase heat loss in the heat. The stem is a prophylactic extension of the upper lip and nose. This highly sensitive organ is innervated primarily by the trigeminal nerve and is believed to be controlled by approximately 40,000-60,000 muscles. Because of this muscular structure, the trunk is so strong that elephants can use it to lift about 3% of their body weight. They use it to smell, touch, eat, drink, dust, make sounds, charge, smell, and attack.
Both male and female African elephants have tusks that grow from milk teeth called tusks, which are replaced by tusks when the calves are about a year old. The teeth are made of dtin, which forms small diamond-shaped structures at the apex of the eye that become larger at its periphery.
The teeth are mainly used to dig up roots and cut the bark of trees for food, to fight with each other during the mating season and to defend against predators. The tusks weigh 23–45 kg (51–99 lb) and can be 1.5–2.4 m (5–8 ft) long. They curve forward and continue to grow throughout the elephant’s life.
African Bush Elephant By Harry The Fox On Deviantart
Elephants have four molars. each weighs about 5 kg (11 lb) and is about 30 cm (12 in) long. As the front pair wears down and decays, the back pair moves forward and two new molars appear in the back of the mouth. Elephants replace their teeth four to six times in their lifetime. Around 40 to 60 years of age, an elephant loses its last molars and is likely to die of starvation, a common cause of death. African elephants have a total of 24 teeth, six in each quadrant of the jaw. The enamel deposits on the molars are less in number than in Asian elephants.
The African elephant is the largest land animal. Cows are 2.2 to 2.6 m (7.2 to 8.5 ft) tall at the shoulder and weigh 2,160 to 3,232 kg (4,762 to 7,125 lb), while bulls are 3.2–4 m (10 -13 ft) and weigh 6,040 kg (10,362–13,334 lb).
The largest individual on record was 3.96 meters (13.0 ft) at the shoulder and weighed about 10,400 kg (22,900 lb).
The African forest elephant is smaller with a weight of up to 4,000 kg (8,800 lb) and a shoulder height of 1.8–2.4 m (5 ft 11 in – 7 ft 10 in) in females and 2.4 to 3 m (7 ft 10). in). – 9 ft 10 in) in males.
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African elephants are widespread in sub-Saharan Africa, where they live in scrub and dry areas of the Sahel, tropical rainforests, mopane and miombo forests. African forest elephant populations are found only in central Africa.
Elephants are the animals with the least time to sleep, especially African elephants. It was found that their average sleep was only 2 hours in 24-hour cycles.
Both species of African elephant live in family units that include several adult cows, their daughters, and their older sons. Each family unit is headed by an older cow known as the matriarch.
African forest elephant groups are less cohesive than African forest elephant groups, possibly due to a lack of predators.
African Forest Elephant
When separate family units are linked, they form kinship or linkage groups. After puberty, male elephants form close alliances with other males. While females are the most active members of African elephant groups, both male and female elephants can distinguish hundreds of different low-frequency infrasound calls to communicate and identify each other.
Bulls were believed to be solitary animals that became independent once they reached maturity. New research shows that bulls retain ecological knowledge of the herd, facilitating survival by foraging for food and water that is also tailored to the young bulls they mate with. Bulls return to the herd only to breed or socialize. They do not provide hands-on care for their offspring, instead playing a paternal role to younger bulls to show dominance.
While feeding, the African elephant uses its trunk to tear off leaves and its tusks to break off branches, which can cause extensive damage to foliage.
The large size and hindgut of the African elephant also allows for the digestion of various plant parts, including fibrous stems, bark and roots.
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They have a very large and highly complex neocortex, a feature they share with humans, monkeys and some species of dolphins. They are among the most intelligent species in the world. With a mass of just over 5 kg (11 lb), the elephant’s brain is larger than that of any other land animal. The elephant brain is similar to the human brain in structure and complexity. an elephant’s cortex has as many neurons as a human brain,
Elephants exhibit a wide variety of behaviors, including those related to mourning, learning, imitation, art, play, humor, altruism, tool use, compassion, cooperation,
All these behaviors point to a highly intelligent species believed to be equal to whales
African elephants are most fertile between the ages of 25 and 45. Calves are born after a gestation period of up to almost two years.
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Calves are cared for by their mother and the other young females in the group, known as the mahout.
African elephants show sexual dimorphism in weight and shoulder height at 20 years of age due to the rapid early growth of males. At 25, men weigh twice as much as women. However, both sexes continue to grow throughout their lives.
And they are in estrus for about 2 to 7 days. They do not mate at a specific time. However, they are less likely to breed in times of drought than when there is plenty of water. The gestation period of an elephant is 22 years