The
African Bush Elephant (
Loxodonta africana) is the larger of the two
speciesIn biology, a species is:* a taxonomic rank or* a unit at that rank ....
of African elephant. Both it and the
African Forest ElephantThe African Forest Elephant was until recently considered a subspecies of the African Bush Elephant ; however, DNA testing has now shown that there are three extant elephant species: the two African types, formerly considered to be different populations of a single species; and the South Asian...
have usually been classified as a single species, known simply as the
African Elephant. Some authorities still consider the currently available evidence insufficient for splitting the African Elephant into two species. It is also known as the
Bush Elephant or
Savanna Elephant.
Description
The African Bush Elephant is the largest living terrestrial animal, normally reaching 6 to 7.3 meters (19.7 to 24.0 feet) in length and 3 to 3.5 meters (9.8 to 11.5 feet) in height at the shoulder, and weighing between 6,000 and 9,000 kg (13,228-19,843
lbThe pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in the imperial, United States customary and other systems of measurement...
).
The largest on record, shot in
AngolaAngola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean. The exclave province of Cabinda has a border with the Republic of the...
in 1955, was a bull weighing 12,274 kg (27,060 lb) and standing 4.2 meters (13.8 ft) high, the body of which is now mounted in the rotunda of the
National Museum of Natural HistoryThe National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.. Admission is free and the museum is open 364 days a year....
in
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790...
. (The museum's website states that the specimen weighs only 8 tons.) The Bush Elephant normally moves at a rate of 6 km/h (4 mph), but it can reach a top speed of 40 km/h (25 mph) when scared or upset.
The animal is characterized by its large head; two large ears that cover its shoulders and radiate excess heat; a large and muscular trunk; two prominent
tuskTusks are unusually long teeth, usually but not always in pairs, that protrude well beyond the mouth of certain mammal species. They are most commonly canines, as with warthogs, wild boar, and walruses, or, in the case of elephants and narwhals, elongated incisors...
s, which are well-developed in both sexes, although more commonly in males; a short neck; a large, barrel-like body; four long and heavy legs; and a relatively short tail.
The animal is protected by a heavy but flexible layer of gray-brown skin, dotted with mostly undeveloped patches of hair and long, black hair at the tip of its tail. Its back feet have three toes that form a hoof, while the number of toes on the front feet have varied between four and five. The front is smoother and less convex than that of the
Asian ElephantThe Asian or Asiantic Elephant , sometimes known by the name of one of its subspecies – the Indian Elephant, is one of the three living species of elephant, and the only living species of the genus Elephas. It is the largest living land animal in Asia...
.
The trunk is the most characteristic feature of the African Bush Elephant. It is formed by the fusion and elongation of the nose and upper lip, forming a flexible and strong organ made purely of muscle.
Little scientific research has been carried out into elephants'
cognitiveAnimal cognition is the title given to a modern approach to the mental capacities of non-human animals. It has developed out of comparative psychology, but has also been strongly influenced by the approach of ethology, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary psychology...
or
perceptualIn philosophy, psychology, and the cognitive sciences, perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory information. It is a task far more complex than was imagined in the 1950s and 1960s, when it was predicted that building perceiving machines would take about a decade,...
abilities. An exception is a recent report that African Bush Elephants are able to use
seismicSeismology is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth...
vibrations at
infrasoundInfrasound is sound that is lower in frequency than 20 Hz or cycles per second, the normal limit of human hearing. Hearing becomes gradually less sensitive as frequency decreases, so for humans to perceive infrasound, the sound pressure must be sufficiently high...
frequencies for communication.
Diet
African Bush Elephants are herbivorous. Their diet varies according to their habitat; elephants living in forests, partial deserts, and grasslands all eat different proportions of herbs and tree or shrubbery leaves. Elephants inhabiting the shores of
Lake KaribaLake Kariba is the largest, man-made lake and reservoir by volume located on the Zambezi river, about halfway between the river's source and mouth, about 1300 kilometers upstream from the Indian Ocean. The lake lies along the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe...
have been recorded eating underwater plant life. In order to break down the plants they consume, the African Bush Elephant has four large
molarMolars are the rearmost and most complicated kind of tooth in most mammals. In many mammals they grind food; hence the Latin name mola, "millstone"....
s, two in each mandible of the jaw. Each of these molars is 10 cm wide and 30 cm long. Over time, these molars are worn away and new ones are grown to replace them as the elephant ages. Around the age of 15 their
milk teethDeciduous teeth, otherwise known as milk teeth, baby teeth, temporary teeth and primary teeth, are the first set of teeth in the growth development of humans and many other mammals. They develop during the embryonic stage of development and erupt—that is, they become visible in the mouth—during...
are replaced by new ones that last until the age of 30, and then by another set which wear off past the age of 40, being replaced by the last set of teeth that last approximately until the age of 65–70. Not much later, the animal dies of starvation from not being able to feed correctly. There are known cases of over 80 year old specimens in captivity.
These animals typically ingest an average of 225 kg of vegetable matter daily, which is defecated without being fully digested. That, combined with the long distances that they can cover daily in search of more food, contributes notably to the dispersion of many plant seeds that
germinateGermination is the process in which a seed or spore emerges from a period of dormancy. The most common example of germination is the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm. However, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, for example the growth of hyphae from fungal...
in the middle of a nutrient-filled feces mound. Elephants rip apart all kind of plants, and knock down trees with the tusks if they are not able to reach the tree leaves. In some national parks there is
overpopulationOverpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. In common parlance, the term usually refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth....
, so that managers of overpopulated parks often contact other parks with fewer specimens to transfer excess individuals.
Elephants also drink great quantities of water, over 190
literThe litre or liter is a unit of volume. There are two official symbols: the Latin letter L in lower and upper case . The lower case L is also often written as a cursive ℓ, though this symbol has no official approval by any international bureau...
s per day.
Social behavior
The African Bush Elephant is an intelligent animal. Experiments with reasoning and learning show that they are the smartest
ungulateUngulates are several groups of mammals, most of which use the tips of their toes, usually hoofed, to sustain their whole body weight while moving. They make up several orders of mammals, of which six to eight survive...
s together with their Asian cousins. This is mostly due to their large
brainThe brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate, and most invertebrate, animals. Some primitive animals such as jellyfish and starfish have a decentralized nervous system without a brain, while sponges lack any nervous system at all...
.
Herds are made up of related females and their young, directed by the eldest female, called the matriarch. Infrequently, an adult male goes with them, but those usually leave the pack when reaching adolescence to form herds with other elephants of the same age. Later, they spread out, carrying out a lonely life, approaching the female herds only during the mating season. Nevertheless, elephants do not get too far from their families and recognize them when reencountered. Sometimes, several female herds can blend for a period of time, reaching even hundreds of individuals.
The matriarch is the one who decides the route and shows to each other member of the herd all the water sources she knows, which the rest will memorize in the future. The relations among the members of the herd is very tight; when a female gives birth to a baby the rest go to acknowledge it touching her with the trunk; and when an old elephant dies the rest of the herd will stay by the corpse for a while. The famous
elephant graveyardAn elephant graveyard is a place where, according to legend, older elephants instinctively direct themselves when they reach a certain age. They then die there alone, far from the group...
s are a myth, but it is true that these animals can recognize a carcass of its species when they find one during their trips, and even if it is a stranger, they form around it and sometimes they even touch its forehead with their trunk.
Mating happens when the female becomes receptive, an event that can occur anytime during the year. When she is ready, she starts emitting infrasounds that attract the males, sometimes from kilometers away. The adult males start arriving at the herd during the following days and begin fighting, causing some injuries and even broken tusks. The female shows her acceptance of the victor by rubbing her body against his. They mate, and then both go their own way. After 22 months of gestation (the longest among mammals), the female gives birth to a single 90 cm high calf which weighs more than 100 kg. The baby feeds on the mothers milk until the age of 5, but also eats solid food from as early as 6 months old. Just a few days after birth, the calf can follow the herd by foot.
Some African Bush Elephants will attack and kill
rhinocerosRhinoceros , often colloquially abbreviated rhino, is a name used to group five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia. Three of the five species—the Javan, Sumatran and Black Rhinoceros—are...
es. This behavior, when it occurs, is mostly observed with younger adult male elephants who have come into
musthMusth is a periodic condition in bull elephants, characterized by highly aggressive behavior, accompanied by a large rise in reproductive hormones - testosterone levels in an elephant in musth can be as much as 60 times greater than in the same elephant at other times...
prematurely.
Predators
The adult African Bush Elephant generally has no natural
predatorsIn ecology, predation describes a biological interaction where a predator feeds on its prey, . Predators may or may not kill their prey prior to feeding on them, but the act of predation always results in the death of the prey...
due to its great size, but the calves (especially the newborn) are vulnerable to
lionThe Lion is one of four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
and
crocodileThe Nile Crocodile is an African crocodile which is common in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Zambia.-Distribution and habitat:...
attacks, and (rarely) to
leopardThe leopard , Panthera pardus, is a member of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera; the other three being the tiger, lion and jaguar...
and
hyenaThe Hyaenidae is a mammalian family of order Carnivora. The Hyaenidae family, native to both African and Asian continents, consists of four living species, the Striped Hyena and Brown Hyena , the Spotted Hyena , and the Aardwolf .-Evolution:Hyenas seem to have originated 26 million years ago from...
attacks. Predation, as well as drought, contribute significantly to infant mortality. Contrary to the ordinary capacities of lions, a pride including over 30 lions has been reported as preying on adult female elephants at
Chobe National ParkChobe National Park, in northwest Botswana, has one of the largest game concentration in Africa continent. By size, this is the third largest park of the country, after the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and the Gemsbok National Park, and is the most diverse...
.
Humans are the elephant's major predator. Elephants have been hunted for meat, skin, bones, and tusks. Elephant
trophy huntingTrophy hunting is the selective hunting of wild game animals. While parts of the slain animal may be kept as a hunting trophy or memorial , the carcass itself is sometimes used as food....
increased in the 19th and 20th centuries, when tourism and plantations increasingly attracted sport hunters. In 1989, hunting of the African Bush Elephant for ivory trading was forbidden, after the elephant population fell from several million at the beginning of the 20th century to fewer than 700,000. Trophy hunting continues today. The population of African Bush Elephants was halved during the 1980s. Scientists then estimated that, if no protective measures were taken, the wild elephant would be extinct by 1995. The protection that the elephant now receives has been partially successful, but despite increasingly severe penalties imposed by governments against illegal hunting, poaching is still common. CITES still considers this species as threatened with extinction.
Species differences
The African Elephant genus
Loxodonta is nowadays generally considered to be composed of two species, the African Bush Elephant (
Loxodonta africana) and the
African Forest ElephantThe African Forest Elephant was until recently considered a subspecies of the African Bush Elephant ; however, DNA testing has now shown that there are three extant elephant species: the two African types, formerly considered to be different populations of a single species; and the South Asian...
(
Loxodonta cyclotis). The African Forest Elephant has a longer and narrower mandible, rounder ears, a different number of toenails, straighter and downward tusks, and considerably smaller size. With regard to the number of toenails: the African Bush Elephant normally has 4 toenails on the frontfoot and 3 on the hindfoot while the African Forest Elephant normally has 5 toenails on the frontfoot and 4 on the hindfoot (like the Asian Elephant), but hybrids between the two species occur.
Another possible species or subspecies existed, but although formally described it has not been widely recognized by the scientific community: The
North African ElephantThe North African Elephant was a possible subspecies of the African Bush Elephant , or possibly a separate elephant species, that existed in North Africa until becoming extinct in Ancient Roman times. These were the famous war elephants used by Carthage in the Punic Wars, their conflict with the...
(
Loxodonta africana pharaohensis), also known as the Carthaginian Elephant or Atlas Elephant. This was the animal famously used as
war elephantA war elephant is an elephant trained and guided by humans for combat. Their main use was to charge the enemy, trampling them and breaking their ranks....
s by
CarthageCarthage refers both to an ancient city in present-day Tunisia, and a modern-day suburb of Tunis. The civilization that developed within the city's sphere of influence is referred to as Punic or Carthaginian...
in its long struggle against
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
.
Conservation
While the species is designated as
Near ThreatenedNear Threatened is a conservation status assigned to species or lower taxa that may be considered threatened with extinction in the near future, although it does not currently qualify for the threatened status...
, conditions vary somewhat by region within
EasternEast Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
and
Southern AfricaSouthern Africa is the southernmost region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. Within the region are numerous territories, including the Republic of South Africa ; nowadays, the simpler term South Africa is generally reserved for the country in English.-UN...
.
In 2006, an
elephant slaughterThe 2006 Zakouma elephant slaughter refers to a series of poaching massacres of African elephants in the vicinity of Zakouma National Park in southeastern Chad. These killings were documented in aerial surveys conducted from May through August 2006 and total at least 100 animals...
was documented in southeastern
ChadChad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...
by aerial surveys. A series of
poachingPoaching is the illegal hunting, fishing, trapping, or eating of wild plants or animals contrary to local and international conservation and wildlife management laws...
incidents, resulting in the killing of over 100 elephants, was carried out during the late spring and summer of 2006 in the vicinity of
Zakouma National ParkZakouma National Park is a national park, located between Sarh and Am Timan, in the south of Chad. Created in 1963, it was Chad's first national park, and has an area of almost 3000 square kilometres...
. This region has a decades-old history of poaching of elephants, which has caused the elephant population of the region, which exceeded 300,000 in 1970, to drop to approximately 10,000 today. The African Bush Elephant officially is protected by Chadian government, but the resources and manpower provided by the government (with some
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
assistance) have proven insufficient to stop the poaching.
Human encroachment into or adjacent to natural areas where Bush Elephants occur has led to recent research into methods of safely driving groups of elephants away from humans, including the discovery that playback of the recorded sounds of angry honey bees are remarkably effective at prompting elephants to flee an area.
External links