African Elephant

[pooky]

Update on the twins.

This is the latest photo from Sabi Sabi.



They look great and seem to have a very good
family support system

[Bushcraft]

Great stuff

Thanks pooky

[Flutterby]

So cute!!

[leachy]

so.........

as requested by tannie amoli - an animal selected to be the star for the month of may..

let us see what our members can share on this topic

[Amoli]

My favourite - and in my birthday month

You're a star - thanks for starting this thread. Sure we will be posting lots, and lots, and lots of pics.

[Toko]

[Sprocky]

Good start Toko!!

[Tshukudu]

[Lisbeth]

No way he would let us pass When we moved ahead he went into the middle of the road and when we backed away he he went into the grass and this for about 15 minutes.....he won, we turned back

[leachy]

taken from wikipedia - with capitals

"African elephants are the elephants of the genus Loxodonta (Greek for 'oblique-sided tooth'), consisting of two extant (opposite of extinct) species: the African bush elephant and the smaller African forest elephant.

Loxodonta is one of the two existing genera in the family Elephantidae.
Although it is commonly believed that the genus was named by Georges Cuvier in 1825, Cuvier spelled it "Loxodonte". An anonymous author romanized the spelling to "Loxodonta", and the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) recognizes this as the proper authority.
Fossil members of Loxodonta have only been found in Africa, where they developed in the middle Pliocene.

The African elephant is the largest living terrestrial animal. Its thickset body rests on stocky legs, and it has a concave back. Its large ears enable heat loss. Its upper lip and nose forms a trunk. The trunk acts as a fifth limb, a sound amplifier and an important method of touch. The African elephant's trunk ends in two opposing lips, whereas the Asian elephant trunk ends in a single lip.

African bush elephants are bigger than Asian elephants. Males stand 3.2–4.0 m (10–13 ft) tall at the shoulder and weigh 4,700–6,048 kg (10,360–13,330 lb), while females stand 2.2–2.6 m (7–9 ft) tall and weigh 2,160–3,232 kg (4,762–7,125 lb).[6]
The largest recorded individual stood four metres (13.1 ft) to the shoulders and weighed 10 tonnes (10 long tons; 11 short tons).

Elephants have four molars; each weighs about 5 kg (11 lb) and measures about 30 cm (12 in) long. As the front pair wears down and drops out in pieces, the back pair shifts forward, and two new molars emerge in the back of the mouth. Elephants replace their teeth six times. At about 40 to 60 years of age, the elephant no longer has teeth and will likely die of starvation, a common cause of death.

Their tusks are firm teeth; the second set of incisors become the tusks. They are used for digging for roots and stripping the bark off trees for food, for fighting each other during mating season, and for defending themselves against predators. The tusks weigh from 23–45 kg (51–99 lb) and can be from 1.5–2.4 m (5–8 ft) long. Unlike Asian elephants, both male and female African elephants have tusks. They are curved forward and continue to grow throughout the elephant's lifetime. The enamel plates of the molars are fewer in number than in Asian elephants."