The African Bush Elephant
“If anyone wants to know what elephants are like, they are like people only more so.” Peter Corneille in Theatreprint.
I selected the African Savannah (Bush) Elephant for my research because it appears to be a particularly striking and dominant subspecies of the elephant family. This truly amazing mammal is a much larger, trunk bearing, and for legged image of us very humans. The grace, power, compassion, dignity and intelligence that elephants possess is apparent, beautiful and unique. These very traits create a connection and a higher curiosity toward Loxodonta africana.
Body Characteristics:
The African Bush elephant has different body characteristics than the African forest elephant and all the Asian elephants. African bush elephants are the largest terrestrial beings, with an average height of 16.4-24.6 feet tall and an average weight of 4-7 tonnes. The exceptionally large and heavy head of an elephant is supported by extra muscles in the neck. The head is framed by two wide ears that provide the elephant with superb hearing capabilities and a self attached ‘air conditioning’ system, which cool down the elephant with flapping motions. The tusks are deeply attached into the skull and grow throughout the majority of the elephants life. The tusks serve as a digging, raking, protective and a trunk resting tool. The trunk of an elephant is most definitely distinct and an evolutionarily remarkable nose that serves many purposes. The trunk is equally delicate and lethal, it is used to draw food and water and then place it in the mouth, it seeks out danger and potential mates, it trumpets, snorkels, caresses, and greets. The trunk is comparable in many functions to human hands and fingers. The elephants feet are like sponge pads that absorb the heavy impact of every step. The massive weight of the body is supported by the skeleton (i.e. Legs are directly under the body, in contrast to having angled limbs like dogs). Elephants have leathery skin that can be up to 1 inch thick in certain areas, though the skin is rough at touch, it is sensitive, this is why they roll in mud and blanket there skin in dust, to rid themselves of pests. They are coloured grey-brown and covered in sparse hair. In contrast to Asian elephants, African elephants have 5 hind toes (Asian elephants have 4) and have less narrow teeth. And their shorter tail has wispy hairs at the end. The elephant body is a monumental, unmistakable and incredibly unique.
Behaviour:
Elephant behaviour consists of advanced social assembly. Families stay in very intimate groups and units that can range from 2-50 members. These groups are lead by the Matriarch, who is the eldest female elephant. The Matriarch is a wise and respected leader that cares for her family, protects the young and makes decisions regarding direction and safety. These families usually consist of females and young elephants, adolescent and adult bulls (male elephants) travel on their own or in other large groups of other bulls. During the dry season, elephant clans are quite common, the clans can range of 100-250 individuals or combined families that migrate together in search of scarce resources, when resources are abundant, the clan disintegrates. Elephants are very altruistic creatures, their selflessness is demonstrated when they risk their lives for their young or their family. The altruism of the Matriarch is especially apparent, because she is always prepared to expose and sacrifice herself to any danger. The elephants care for their young is also very apparent, the herds gather around their young for means of protection and other female members in the herd will breast feed the young, not just the mother. exclusively. The elephants brain is categorized in the same ranking as primate brains. The level of communication and intelligence in elephants allows them to express grief, compassion, happiness, encouragement, excitement, courage, laughter, playfulness, and self awareness. Elephant grieving is just as complex and human grievance, elephants express much grief over still born babies, a lost family member and the loss of the Matriarch. The sadness in the eyes, slouching body and lowered ears are all physical signs of their grief. Elephants can take years to recover from loss, they are known to bury the dead, and return to the place of decease, where they mourn for days. Essentially, human and elephant behaviour are similar in many ways.
Location and Habitat:
The African Bush Elephant is found in central west Africa, they inhabit grassy savannah plains throughout the central and southern parts of the continent. Known populations are found in Angola, Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Mozambique, Rwanda, Uganda, Congo and Gabon. Elephants live in the hot, vast savannah grassland, where they largely contribute to their own ecosystem. The elephants have the strength and build to convert woodlands and forests into expanded savannah and grasslands. Other contributions include creating water holes by digging or their deep foot tracks, their paths create firebreaks and rain water deposits, they aerate the soil, and their presence disturbs small ground creatures, leaving more food for birds.
Feeding and Diet:
The herbivorous bush elephant consumes approximately 225 kg of food and 190 L of water per day. They eat what the grasslands provide in that specific season, but usually eat leaves, twigs, herbs, bark, branches, bushes, grass and fruit. Elephants need a sufficient amount of food and water everyday to maintain proper nutrition. They obtain their food by ripping and pulling their food (i.e. grass) with their trunk and placing it into their mouths. They also drink by using their trunks to suck up water and squirt it into their mouths. The bush elephants has four large molars at each corner of their mouth, that over time ware away, fortunately new replacement molars grow back and will last the elephant to its elder years. Because the diet consists of fibrous vegetation, salivary and mucous glands in the mouth and esophagus help to lubricate the food. The cylindrically shaped stomach, stores all the food but not much digestion happens in the stomach. The intestines of the elephant are unique to those of other animals because an African bull elephant can have intestines up to 19 metres in length.
In the junction of the small and large intestines, fermentative digestion of cellulose takes place with the help of bacteria. The products of digestion are absorbed by the walls of the caecum. The waste then exits the body. Only 40% of the food eaten by elephant is fully digested, the other 60% remains undigested when excreted. Elephant faecal matter does not get broken down much during the digestive process, therefor seeds and other vegetation aid in the cycle, which benefit dung beetles and birds who feed off the waste to obtain vital nutrients.
Adaptations and special qualities:
The migrating African Bush Elephant has unique qualities and adaptations that make the elephant truly remarkable. These qualities include its trunk and tusks, which were earlier described, these distinguishing and multifunctional tools serve the elephant in means of survival, considering the trunks are used to obtain food and for communication and the tusks serve to dig and protect. And the strong and large teeth ensure that the elephant can eat such tough and brittle food matter, such as wood and twigs A very interesting and special quality that elephant possesses is its exceptional hearing. The large tympanic membrane of the elephant helps it hear from great distances. The elephant can hear the call of another elephants from a distance of 50-100 km per square range. They can also produce an incredibly low sound frequency, the sound calls range from 15-35 hertz, which cannot even be heard or detected by the human ear. These infrasound calls can be heard up to 10 km away, and are used particularly my the males to attract mates. As earlier mentioned, the ears of elephants also keep them cool. Other interesting elephant facts include that they have poor night vision, they cannot jump and hey have excellent memories.
Reproduction and Life Cycle:
Bull elephants do not usually breed until they are 30 years old. Once a year, during Musth season the bull reaches a hormonal influx and searches for a mate. During Musth, the bull becomes very unpredictable, intense, uncontrollable and aggressive. Female elephants reach sexual maturity between the ages of 10-12. Female elephants will produce calves between four to five year intervals and usually only carry one calf at a time. The reason why they the intervals are so long is because their gestation period last 23 months, leaving the elephant very attached to her young. The births most usually happen during the rainy season and an elephant usually has 1-2 offspring on average. The calves, usually weighing 300 lbs are born live and can stand, with wakened senses within a very short time. The calves consume 20 pints of breast milk a day and will gain 30 lbs a week. The calf will stay dependent on its mothers milk for two years, the young will receive the complete attention and care from all members of the closely knit herd. After the age of two, the calf will be able to obtain its own food and at about 16 years of age, the elephant will leave its mother, most usually the males will leave and the female offspring will stay with her herd. An elephant becomes fully grown between the age of 13-20. The elephant herd is filled with female elephants and their calves, grown male elephants wander out on their own and will stay that way for the remainder of their lives. The African Bush elephant's average life expectancy in the wild is 60 years of age, however, in captivity, they can live into their seventies.
In conclusion, the African bush Elephant is a complex creature with many comparable social and intellectual traits that we humans possess. The elephant is a very threatened animal that must be protected and embraced. They are valuable and unique to biodiversity, the animal kingdom and the incredible variation of life on earth.
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