In our article, we want to talk about the famous giants who occupy second place among the largest land animals. Meet these Asian elephants.
Appearance of animals
The Asian (Indian) elephant is significantly different from those individuals that live in Africa. An Indian animal weighs up to five and a half tons. Its height is 2.5-3.5 m. Elephants have rather modest tusks about one and a half meters long and weighing up to twenty-five kilograms. If the animal simply does not have them, then it is called a makhna.
Asian elephants have small ears, pungent and elongated at the ends. They boast a powerful physique. The legs are relatively short and fairly thick. An Indian or Asian elephant has five hooves on its forelimbs and only four on its hind legs. His strong, powerful body is guarded and protected by thick wrinkled skin. On average, its thickness is 2.5 centimeters. The softest thin areas are inside the ears and around the mouth.
The color of animals can vary from dark gray to brown. Asian albino elephants are very rare. Such unique animals are very appreciated in Siam, they are even a subject of worship there. Their main feature is fair skin, on which there are lighter spots. The eyes of an albino are also unusual; they have a light yellow tint. There are even such instances in which the skin is pale red, and whitish hair grows on the back.
The absence of tusks in Asian elephants and their small size in those individuals that have them saved animals from ruthless destruction, as happened in Africa.
Habitat
Wild Asian elephants live in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, and even in Brunei. They live in national parks, inaccessible areas and reserves. Elephants are very fond of ruining rice plants, as well as thickets of sugarcane, picking banana trees. For this reason, they are considered pests of agriculture, and therefore they prefer to push them to distant territories, so as not to lose crops.
Indian elephants adore subtropical and tropical forests (broad-leaved) with dense thickets of bushes and bamboo. In summer, they prefer to climb the mountains. In extreme heat, giants wave their ears, thus cooling their bodies.
Asian elephant: lifestyle
It's hard to believe, but these are very dexterous animals. With such a significant weight, they balance perfectly, although they look extremely clumsy. Despite their impressive size, they dashingly climb the forested mountainsides to a height of 3.6 thousand meters. Of course, without seeing, it is hard to imagine. The special structure of the soles of the feet allows them to travel safely through marshy places, although they are so careful that they periodically check the reliability of the land cover under their feet with the help of strong blows with a trunk.
The Asian elephant is the second largest land animal, which causes genuine respect for him. Females live in small groups consisting of a maximum of ten adults with babies of different ages. The leader is the oldest female, taking care of the safety of her entire herd.
Females tend to help each other. For example, when one of them begins to give birth, all the others stand around her and do not leave until the calf appears and stands on its feet. In such a simple way, they protect the mother and baby from attacks by predators. Newborn elephants usually stay near their mother, however, they can easily eat with another female who has milk.
The female gives birth to only one cub weighing up to one hundred kilograms. Pregnancy lasts 22 months. Kids are born with small tusks, which they drop in the second year of life.
Having reached the age of ten to sixteen, males will forever leave their mother, but the females remain in the herd. In some ways, the lifestyle of these animals is similar to the human. By the age of 12-16, elephants are able to reproduce, but become adults by only twenty.
How long do they live?
Elephants can be safely attributed to centenarians. They live 60-80 years. An interesting fact is that in the wild, individuals die not from age and disease, but simply from hunger. This situation is due to the fact that during their whole life their teeth change only four times. All updates take place until the age of forty, and later they no longer grow. Old gradually become worthless. And by the age of seventy, the teeth become completely bad, the animal can no longer chew with them, and therefore loses all opportunity to eat.
Indian, or Asian, elephant: food
I must say that the diet of wild elephants depends entirely on where they live. In general, animals prefer ficus leaves. An important role is played by the fact that it is dry season or rainy season.
Elephants are very fond of all kinds of herbs, leaves, fruits, even eat the crown of trees, because they draw minerals from it. During the day, the animal eats from 300 to 350 kilograms of grass and leaves. They have a lot of water. Elephants generally prefer marsh plants. But African individuals love salt, they find it in the ground.
Food in captivity
Asian (African) elephants, living in captivity, feed mainly on hay and grass. Animals love sweets. Preference is given to apples, bananas, beets, carrots. Elephants also like flour products, especially cookies and bread. At the zoo, they eat up to thirty kilograms of hay per day, plus another fifteen kilograms of fruit, vegetables, ten kilograms of flour products. They can also feed animals with cereals, for example, giving up to ten kilograms of grain. Be sure to include vitamins and salt in the diet of elephants.
Behavior features
Elephants swim beautifully, easily overcome a long journey. Animals sleep only four hours, it is quite enough for them. Elephants need water, and they drink it quite a lot (up to 200 liters per day). As a rule, for this they go to the source, only quench their thirst for seniority. Sometimes, instead of water, the kids get just a dirty slurry. This happens during periods of extreme heat, when water bodies dry up. But in periods when there is a lot of fluid, elephants bathe, watering each other with a trunk. Perhaps this is how they play.
Frightened elephants run fast enough, developing a speed of up to 50 kilometers an hour. At the same time, they raise their tails up, thus giving a signal of danger. Animals have developed sense of smell and hearing.
Indian and African elephants have a completely different character. Asian people are very friendly and good to people. In general, they are much easier to tame. It is these elephants that help people transport goods and perform heavy work in the southeastern countries of Asia. If you have ever seen an elephant in a circus, then do not doubt that this is an Asian animal.
Absolutely all species of elephants are endangered, and therefore are listed in the Red Book.
Interesting Facts
Surely you do not know that:
- When swimming underwater, elephants use their trunk for breathing.
- At the end of the trunk, the Asian animal has one finger-shaped outgrowth. With it, the elephant eats.
- In difficult times, animals can cry like people, while they make low sounds that we don’t hear.
- The voices of each other are distinguished by elephants at a distance of 19 kilometers.
- These are the only animals that bury their dead relatives. Finding the remains, the herd together hides the bones in the ground.
- The trunk is very important for the animal, it eats with it, breathes and sniffs, takes out the foliage of the trees. Having wounded him, the elephant may die of hunger.
