Elephants’ Natural Habitat
Asian elephants live in the forest and have smaller ears. There small ears are just suited for their habitat as larger ears would get torn in branches of trees. Elephants in Africa live on the savannah or grasslands and in the tropical forest. The once that live in the tropical forests are straighter and with thinner tusk than those that live in the savannah or grassland. Their body shapes and sizes are tuned to the nature of their habitats.
Elephants’ Bodies
Elephants are huge. They are the largest land animals. They have very big legs and rounded feet with help them to reduce the pressure exerted on the ground during movement and enable them to move easily. They have short tails. All elephants have trunks, which have two points on the end that act like fingers. They help the elephant to pick up things ranging from tiny objects to large logs. The trunks are also used for smelling, breathing, touching, eating and drinking. Adult elephants use their trunk to stroke the young ones. The trunk is used like a hose to sprinkle dust over their bodies to cool them and protect them from incest bites, or to spray water into their mouths or all over their bodies. An elephant’s trunk has about 40,000 muscles in it. The ears are very important to the elephant. The veins in the ear are closed to the surface so blood cools in the ear on its way round the elephant’s body. Some elephants have tusks which are big front teeth. These tusk help the elephant to pick up food and protect itself. The bottom teeth are inside the elephant’s mouth and are used chew food.
Elephants’ Diet
Elephants eat large amounts of leaves, grass, fruits and bark. They spent about three quarter of the day feeding, eating up to 900kg of food daily. They drink about 190 litres of water a day.
Life Cycle Of An Elephant
Elephant live in large group called herds. A female elephant is called a cow, the male is a bull and a baby elephant is called a calf. A female elephant gives birth to a calf about 22 months after mating which explains the reason for the few numbers of elephant in the wild. A calf drinks milk from its mother until it is about two years old. All the adult in the group help look after and teach the young elephant.
