Loxodonta

 Wait!! What? Loxodonta? - Don't befog. I will explain it to you...

Today we are going to see about a very big personality. He is so good at heart and humble as well. But the above statement holds true until he is teased. We can number people who do not like him. There is much more to say about him which is what we are going to confer today. By this time, you would have been wondering who is he?

It is none other than our most beloved creature on earth “THE ELEPHANT”.

Wow!! Who doesn’t like an Elephant? When we just think about it, we get a wonderful image of a majestic fellow with a long trunk and strong tusks right? 

 1.  Elephants are from the family Elephantidae. Elephants are known to be the largest land mammal. 

 

2.  Currently, there are only 3 types of Elephants found on earth.

a.  African Elephant

b.  African Bush Elephant

c.   Asian Elephant

3.     Elephants cannot be attacked easily with the only exception is their predators such as lions, tigers, hyenas, and wild dogs which will target young calves.

4.     The life span of an Elephant is 70 years. The oldest elephant known to have lived is about 86 years old. It is Lin Wang. He served the Japanese army during WWII.

5.     Females will live in a family group whereas the male will leave they're family groups once they attain puberty and start living with other males.

6.     Skeleton of elephants are made up to 326-351 bones

7.     Elephants can lift objects up to 350kg with help of their trunks.

8.     The thickness of the Elephant’s skin is about an inch (2.5 cm) at the head and back and thinner at the rest of the parts.

9.     The weight of an elephant’s brain varies from 4.5-5.5 kg’s whereas the human brain is around 1.6 kgs

10. The heart of the elephant weighs from 16-21 kg’s

11. Elephant’s heartbeats around 30 times per minute while standing and just 8-10 times per minute while lying down.

12. Elephant’s body temperature is similar to that of a human’s 96.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

13. The gestation period of an Elephant is 920 days which is approximately 30 months!!

14. Elephant’s teeth will fall and grow 6 times in its total life span.

15. Elephants drink about 350 liters of water per day!!

16. If an elephant is left to starve for Water for 24 hours, it will not survive.

17. The elephant is the only animal on earth that cannot jump.

18. Olfactory receptor i.e. smell receptor for an elephant is present in its mouth.

19. Elephants do not have sweat glands.

20. The elephant's temporal lobe (the area of the brain associated with memory) is larger and denser than that of people - hence the saying 'elephants never forget'. An elephant has very good extrasensory perception – It can detect storm well before. Also, it can detect human activities as far as 3 km from its base location.

21. There is a perception that Female Elephants don’t have tusks. But female elephants in Africa do have tusks.

22. Elephants can suck up to 8 liters of water with their trunk.

23. Elephants even use their trunk as a Snorkel (a tube for a swimmer to breathe through while underwater).

24. Elephants eat up to 150 kg of food per day.  They constantly eat such that they spend almost 3/4^th of their day eating!!

25. Elephants communicate in a variety of ways - including sounds like trumpet calls (some sounds are too low for people to hear), body language, touch, and scent. They can also communicate through seismic signals - sounds that create vibrations in the ground - which they may detect through their bones.

26. New-born calves can stand by themselves within 20 minutes of their birth.

27. Elephants “hug” their trunks together to say hello to each other.

28. Elephants are afraid of bees. Farmers use this technique to keep elephants away from sugar cane fields.

29. Elephants can have babies up to 50 years of age.

30. Elephants eye-lashes are about 5 inches long.

31. Elephants can swim up to 6 hours without touching the bottom and travel around 48kms during that duration.

32. Elephants walk up to 10-20 km per day but can move up to 180 km which is recorded to be the most.

33. There are only 4,00,000 elephants left in this universe.

 

 

African elephants are listed as vulnerable and Asian elephants as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). A survey published says almost 90% of African elephants are wiped off in the last century.

So irony is it? Let us contribute something to nature to save this wonderful creature from becoming extinct.

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