Covered:
- Basic Facts
- Elephant Ears
- Elephant Trunk
- Diet
- Breeding
Basic Facts
Elephants are generally the largest land moving animal on earth! Particularly, the Asian elephant a.k.a Elephas Maximus, though smaller compared to its African elephant cousins, weighs roughly between 2000 – 5000kg, stretches up to 9m in length and can tower up to 3m at the shoulder (National Geographic, n.d.)!
The Asian Elephants are distributed unevenly in Asia; Nepal, India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, China, Indonesia and Sri Lanka!
Elephant Ears
Its large ears help emit heat to keep them from heating up and often, they are found playing around water spraying themselves to further cool themselves (National Geographic, n.d.).
Elephant Trunk
The trunk has about 100, 000 muscles and it serves many functions (National Geographic, n.d.), as you can guess, such as smelling, breathing, drinking, picking up their meals, spraying themselves with water and trumpeting!
Diet
Elephants are herbivores! Hence, their menu usually contains roots, barks, fruits and grasses. Mind blowing (yet it is not since they are huge) fact is, they can eat up to 137kg worth of food IN A DAY (National Geographic, n.d.)! Spectacular isn’t it? How I wish I could eat like that without getting big.
Breeding
Its lifespan is up to 60 years and reproduction rate is 1 calf/ 2.5-4years (World Wide Fund for Nature [WWF], n.d.)! Carrying a calf full term takes about 22 months. That’s a lot of commitment and is almost 2.5x more than a human pregnancy term! Kudos to elephants! This gives it more reason to rally towards the conservation of these fine creatures!