Elephantidae

The elephants or elephantids (Elephantidae) are a family of placental mammals of the order Proboscidea. They were formerly classified, along with other thick-skinned mammals, in the now invalid order of pachyderms (Pachydermata). Nowadays there are three species and several subspecies. Among the extinct genera of this family, mammoths stand out.

The Indian wild elephant of the Marayoor Forest, Munnar, Kerala.

Savannah African elephant breed (African Loxodonta), Kruger National Park, South Africa.

Elephants are the largest land animals living today. The gestation period is twenty-two months, the longest for any land animal. Birth weight is usually 118 kg. They normally live for fifty to seventy years, but ancient records document maximum ages of eighty-two years. The largest recorded elephant hunted weighed around 11,000 kg (Angola, 1956), reaching a height at the withers of 3.96 m, one meter taller than the average African elephant. The smallest elephant, about the size of a calf or large pig, is a prehistoric species that existed on the island of Crete, Elephas creticus, during the Pleistocene.

Weighing 5 kg, the elephant brain is the largest of all land animals. A wide variety of behaviors associated with intelligence are attributed to it, such as mourning, altruism, adoption, play, tool use, compassion, and self-recognition. Elephants may be on a par with other intelligent species such as cetaceans and some primates.. The largest areas in your brain are in charge of hearing, taste, and mobility.

Current Genres

Details of the head of an African elephant

Modern elephants are classified into two different genera, Loxodonta (African elephants) and Elephas (Asian elephants), belonging to two different tribes. Classically, two species were recognized, one in each genus, but there is currently a debate among scientists about whether the two African subspecies are actually two different species, in which case we would be talking about a total of three species of elephants. The following species and subspecies are recognized:

• African elephants (Loxodonta).

African Loxodonta - African savannah or scrub elephant.

Loxodonta cyclotis - African jungle elephant.

Loxodonta adaurora †

Loxodonta African pharaoensis †

Loxodonta atlantica †

Loxodonta exoptatata †

• Asian elephants (Elephas)

Elephas maximus. A single species with three living subspecies:

Elephas maximus maximus - Sri Lankan elephant.

Elephas maximus indicus - Indian elephant.

Elephas maximus sumatranus - Sumatra elephant.

Elephas maximus asurus †

Elephas maximus rubridens †

Elephas antiquus †

Elephas beyeri †

Elephas celebensis †

Elephas chaniensis †

Elephas creticus †

Elephas creutzburgi †

Elephas cypriotes †

Elephas ekorensis †

Elephas falconeri †

Elephas iolensis †

Elephas melitensis †

Elephas mnaidriensis †

Elephas namadicus †

Elephas naumanni †

Elephas planifrons †

Elephas platycephalus †

Elephas recki †

The Borneo elephant (Elephas maximus borneensis) and Malaysian elephant (Elephas maximus hirsutus) are currently classified as Elephas maximus indicus.

Characteristics and behavior of current species

Elephant sculpture, in the Borobudur group, Indonesia.

Running by rubbing your back in Chobe National Park, Botswana.

They have a highly developed nasal prolongation, called the proboscis (commonly known as the proboscis) which, thanks to its developed musculature (it has 150,000 muscles), gives them great mobility and sensitivity. The trunk is the fusion of the elephant's nose and upper lip, and serves it for many things, in addition to breathing and smelling:

• It is so sensitive that you can distinguish shapes and textures by touching something.
• It emits sounds (barritos) of different types, including infrasonic.
• It collects food either from the ground or up to 6 or 7 m high.
• They use it to suck water, then put in their mouths to drink or throw in their body to cool.
• Along the tube runs the nasal canal, and as it has the best smell in the world, they lift it up in the air to perceive distant smells.

Elephants also have tusks, which are actually incisors; they emerge from its upper jaw and grow curved on the sides of the proboscis. They are used to open the way, mark trees (a way of marking their territory), dig, and to attack and defend themselves when necessary. Elephant tusks are a great source of ivory, but due to the increasing rarity of elephants, almost all hunting and trafficking is now illegal. However, in the absence of the necessary resources to enforce the law, elephant tusks continue to be traded on the black market. This implies that the wanton killing of elephants continues to this day to achieve such a goal. Elephant tusks can weigh up to 120 kg and be up to 3 m long, although typically less than one meter. These tusks are not canine teeth, but extremely long incisors, and the ivory is the dentin that forms them.

Another of the main characteristics of elephants is that they have large auditory pavilions (larger in the African elephant than in the Asian one). The main function of these ears is the thermoregulation of the animal. Being highly vascularized, they allow proper cooling of the blood, which in animals of this volume would be difficult to achieve by other means. It is also capable of perceiving infrasonic sounds, which allows it to communicate with individuals located several kilometers away. These sounds, with frequencies of only five hertz (impossible for humans to hear), are transmitted by air and land, and can be detected by the legs before reaching the animal's ear, as the speed of sound propagation is higher in the ground than in the air. This difference in the reception of the sound could be used by the elephant to estimate the distance at which its congener is.

Comparative view with the human being (1860)

They feed almost exclusively on grass, tree bark and some shrubs, of which they can ingest two hundred kilograms in a day. They are the largest land mammals today, in order of their size and weight. An adult African male can weigh up to 7,500 kg, although the known record is 11,000 kg. They generally live to be around 60-70 years old (sometimes over 70 years old). an elephant in the wild; It is estimated that on very rare occasions they have been able to exceed ninety years of age. In captivity, the record is held by the famous Asian elephant Lin Wang, who served for the Chinese Expeditionary Forces in the Second Sino-Japanese War, as well as participating in other military missions and "meeting" senior officials of the Chinese army, such as Sun Li- jen. He passed away at the age of eighty-six in 2003.

The elephant produces a wide range of sounds, with which it expresses various emotions. The best known is the barrito, which he does when he is scared.^{[citation needed]}

Several students of elephant cognition and neuroanatomy are convinced that elephants are highly intelligent and self-aware. Others dispute this view.

The African elephant is the mammal with the longest gestation time, approximately twenty-two months, and weighs about 115 kg at birth.^{[citation needed]}

Facts and myths

African elephant male

Elephant breed

Elephant captive to transport tourists

In general, the elephant is associated with a good memory, and studies carried out by the University of Sussex in Kenya, led by Dr. Karen McComb, seem to confirm this. Studying communications between elephants in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, researchers concluded that these animals were capable of recognizing the calls of more than a hundred different individuals^{[citation needed]}. Apparently, these sounds, similar to a high-pitched growl, can be used to identify other individuals and form part of a relatively complex social network.

Other studies, also led by Karen McComb, confirmed the ability of elephants to recognize the remains of carcasses of the same species, paying special attention to those corresponding to members of their herd, which they apparently distinguish by their smell. When they come across these remains, they seem to pay them a particular posthumous homage, touching them with their trunks and hooves. However, when faced with bones of other species, their indifference is total.^{[citation needed]}

Many people think that elephants are afraid of mice. Actually, what happens is that elephants have poor vision: their eyes are on the sides of their heads, which means that they cannot clearly distinguish anything small that moves in front of them. This means that they do not tolerate surprises or sudden movements and when a mouse approaches they become nervous and a bit aggressive.^{[citation needed]}

It is believed that there are elephant cemeteries, since elephant remains have been found in the same area, very close to each other, which is a myth. What does happen is that before dying, elephants instinctively look for water, so many die near it and close to each other.^{[citation required]}

A scene at Camp Elephant Sands, Botswana

The elephant in the war

Elephant of Indian War

This painting is probably a copy of an Alaert du Hamel engraving, which is presumably a copy of a lost work by Hieronymus Bosch.

The industry of man and the rage to harm his enemies led him to use this enormous quadruped in war, arming it in different ways, among them some wooden towers or towers, from where a certain number of warriors fired throwing weapons. Heliodorus sets the number of soldiers mounting the tower at six. In any case, the damage that this kind of movable fortification would do can be judged, since in addition to the arrows and darts fired by its defenders, the elephant also made use of its trunk, since according to some historians, this animal is very fond of war exercises.

The first time we see him appear on the scene in military history is in the battle of Arbela or Arbella (Syria) in 331 BC. C. in which Darius, king of Persia, presented them in number of 15 in the center of his battle line, against Alexander the Great, who despite this, defeated his enemy and deprived him of the kingdom. The victorious king, as a great captain, did not fail to take advantage of this element of war and the elephants formed part of the Macedonian phalanxes. Helianus says that the Greeks militarily organized the group of elephants into an army:

• the falange was the main body, or 64 elephants
• the calerarchy She was 32
• the elefantarquia16
• the epitarquia4
• the tears2
• the zoarquia It was an elephant alone, whether or not the tower was on top

Elephant of medieval war

The knight Armandi, a French colonel, is of the opinion that the phalanx, when attacked, formed a solid square so that it could easily form a front, and when it attacked it went in a single file. Pyrrhus sent them to Italy and the Romans learned from him and Hannibal how to use it in a day of battle. They were first used against Philip, and they continued to be used in all their wars for 300 years, until the time of Caesar. So much came to esteem the elephant, that his body was covered with iron plates and his chest with a breastplate, in the middle of which was fixed a steel point. They also had these points at the ends of their fangs. Instead, breastplates bristling with steely spikes were invented to defend the body of the warriors destined to attack the elephants so that they would injure themselves when seizing them with their trunks.

The best way to attack the elephant was to kill the cornell or driver, since disoriented and without a guide, he was marching at random. Not all elephants had a warrior instinct and many times, particularly when they were new, they were frightened by the tumult and confusion of the combats: the screams and the wounds irritated them and then, finding no place to escape, because they tried to prevent it by placing a corps of slingers behind their backs, they rammed their own troops, causing in them the destruction that they should have done in the enemy. In this case, the driver had no choice but to stab them in the head with a very sharp dagger that he carried for that purpose and they fell dead instantly. This inconvenience, repeated frequently, together with the difficulties of their maintenance, due to the enormous amount of food they consumed, often impossible to provide, meant that elephants were no longer used as an element of war.

Taxonomy

Female of savannah African elephants (African Loxodonta) with a baby, Kruger National Park, South Africa

The family Elephantidae is subdivided into two subfamilies and eight genera:

• Basal genders

Stegolophodon †

Stegotetrabelodon †

Stegodibelodon †

• Subfamily Stegodontinae †

Stegodon †

• Subfamily Elephantinae

Basal genders

Primelephas †

Elephantini Tribe

Elephas

Mammuthus †

Tribu Loxodontini

Loxodonta

The genera Anancus†, Tetralophodon†, Stegomastodon† and Paratetralophodon† formerly considered to belong to this family are today classified in other groups.