The Garden of Eaden: ELEPHANT

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In the animal world, a fully-grown African elephant, or Loxodonta Africana to give it its scientific name, is like the double decker bus – it’s the biggest living land mammal and dwarfs almost any other creature. Both male and female elephants have tusks – and like human beings – they’re either right or left tusked which means one tusk gets worn down quicker than the other. Tusks are also particular to the elephant – varying in shape, size and angle so that researchers can use them to identify what elephant they came from – in a way, kind of similar to our fingerprints.

Aside from the tusks, the other standout feature we all notice, is the elephant’s trunk. And it’s a feature that serves many purposes for the elephant as it is used to smell things, to grab things, to aid balance, to signal to other elephants and to collect food, siphon water, to dust and also to dig.

Diet

An elephants ‘ diet is pretty varied although it is purely vegetarian, and every single day they need to eat around 5% of their body mass. Things they eat include leaves, twigs, fruit, seedpods and grass. Aside from food, they also need to take in a whopping 30-50 gallons of water. Elephants drink water by using their trunks to siphon off water from a pool, for instance, and then pouring it into their mouths.

Behaviour

Elephants are social creatures and prefer the company of other elephants to living solo. They tend to live in small family units with an older male elephant at the helm and younger related elephants further down the pecking order.

Different family units can co-exist together in one particular area and get along fine. Like humans, elephants will happily greet each other when they come into contact at places like watering holes. Often, older male elephants will visit different family units to see if there are female elephants who are at the right stage to mate with.

Elephants are very caring creatures and female elephants look after their babies for many years. This ensures that their offspring learns skills like drinking water and so on. Baby elephants drink their mother’s milk until its tusks are around five to six inches long. At this point they start to cause a problem for the mother so she gradually weans her offspring and they go onto solid foods.

Predators

Because they’re so big, African elephants don’t have any animal predators – sadly, it’s just humans who threaten them and it’s all because of their beautiful ivory tusks.

Calves – younger elephants – can fall prey to other animals such as lions, crocodiles and other carnivorous animals.

Communication

Elephants make deep growling noises to communicate with each other – and they’re often so low that they can’t be heard by the human ear. However, other elephants are able to hear them up to five or six miles away. If an elephant is in distress or senses danger close by, it may emit a loud blast. This almost deafening call will cause the other elephants in the group to form a protective barricade around younger elephants in order to keep them safe from potential harm.

Seeing elephants in a safari park can never compare to seeing elephants in the wild, so why not check out the great range of P and O cruises 2013 to see if you can combine a leisurely cruise with a stunning trip to see African elephants in the wild?

Finally, we'll leave you with some -

Interesting Elephant Facts