The Garden of Eaden: THE AFRICAN ELEPHANT

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The African elephant is the largest and most powerful of all living land mammals. Essentially an animal of the open grassland, it is also sufficiently adaptable to live quite happily in a variety of habitats within its sub-Saharan homeland.

African elephant behaviour

African elephants are social creatures with strong family ties. So close can these relationships be that theyfind it extremely difficult to leave a dead companion. In fact, like humans, African elephants will grieve over the loss of a family member, staying by the 'grave' for many hours after the death.

Female African elephants and their young (calves) live in family units, under the leadership of a mature female (the matriarch) to whom every member of the group is related.

The young bull elephants are driven out of the family group when they reach puberty. They then join together to live in separate bachelor herds. Adult bulls live alone and are only briefly permitted to enter a family unit when a female member is ready to breed.

Although these African elephant herds may wander great distances, they are never to far away from water. As well as drinking, African elephants have a fondness for bathing which they like to enjoy every evening.

In the dry season, when many rivers would have dried up and water holes become evermore scarce, African elephants generally have to make do with a shower. This is achieved by sucking what water there is into their trunks, and squirting it over themselves.

After bathing they 'dust' their wet skin with dry soil. This coating of dust or mud then helps to protect their skin from the ceaseless and irritating attacks by biting insects. It also helps to keep theor skin moist and protect them from the damaging effects of exposure to strong sunlight,

How do African elephants communicate?

Most of us are familiar with the calls of an elephant. They range from the familiar trumpet call (a favourite of the old Tarzan films) to a low-frequency rumble that sounds – at least to our human ears - something akin to a deep growl.

These forms of communication are an essential part of their social behaviour and this enables a herd to keep track of relatives, defend territories and alert other elephants to danger.

It has now been discovered that elephants can produce an infrasonic sound from 1- 20Hz – a range that is inaudible to humans - and these sounds can travel over huge distances. They can also produce what is known as a ‘seismic’ signal which is like mini earthquake allowing elephants to position each other in relation to their own location.

Using specially-developed acoustic software, researchers at San Diego Zoo in the US have tried to uncover the secret language of the elephant by deciphering these sounds and have come up with a fascinating new insight into the workings of the herd.

Early results have shown that pregnant females - in the last few days of their gestation period – begin to manipulate the low frequency range of their calls.

This auditory communication alerts the rest of the herd of the imminent birth, and at the appropriate time they react by forming a barrier around the mother to protect her and the newly born calf from potential predators at this critical time.

What do African elephants eat?

African elephants are entirely vegetarian, and eat a wide variety of grasses, foliage, small branches, twigs and various fruits. They tear at these, gathering them in their trunks, ready to stuff into their mouths.

The few teeth that African elephants have (four at any one time with around 6 replacements sets during its lifetime) are used to grind the food befor swallowing.

Once the elephant has lost all of its teeth it will be unable to feed itself and will die of starvation - usually at about 70 years of age.

Not surprisingly, African elephants have enormous appetites and need a large intake of food to satisfy them. Night time and early morning and evening are favourite eating and drinking times, but African elephants will also happily graze whilst on the move. They are quite capable of snatching at clumps of grass and leaves without pausing in their stride, or reducing their speed of pace.

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