The Elephant

I'm not sure if Elephants are one of my totem animals, but I do like them. So I created this page about elephants in general and elephants as totem animals. Enjoy.

Elephants are large mammals that you find in parts of Asia and Africa. Asian elephants and African elephants are a little bit different. Elephants can live to about 70 years old. They have offspring until about 50, however they only have one at a time and wait about 2.5 - 4 years in between each baby. Could you imagine a litter of elephants? Elephants may make babies for many years but because they only have one at a time and there are elephant hunters, Elephants are becoming more and more rare.

Elephants are known for their enormous trunks. An elephant's trunk is essentially it's nose. An elephant can breathe through it's trunk. While it may seem that elephants drink through their trunks, that is not true. They use their trunk to suck up some water and then put their trunk to their mouth and blow the water into their mouth. The trunk is a tool for the animal and being a nose is not it's only job. Elephants use their trunks to scratch behind an ear or to bathe themselves in a similar way to drinking. Within reason, elephants can pick up and even throw objects with their trunks! How do they do that? With the FINGERS on the end of their TRUNK! Yep you heard me right. African elephants have two fingers on the tips of their trunks which help them pick things up. An Asian elephant has only one but can still scoop objects up. The trunk is heavy. Elephants will often rest their trunk over one of their tusks. Elephant trunks have about 40 000 muscles. The whole human body only has about 639! Elephants also use trunks to 'hug' a friend or poke and play with them.

Elephants are actually a lot like humans. They can cry and laugh. They grieve over stillborn babies and dead family members. They play with each other and have wonderful memory capabilities.

There are differences among Asian and African elephants but there are also differences among them depending on where they live. For example, for African elephants, those that live in the Savannah tend to be 4-7 tonnes while those that live in the forst are only 2-4 tonnes. With Asian elephants, the ones in Sri Lanka are grey in colour with lots of areas of depigmentation. Sumatran elephants however are a very light grey colour.

Asian Elephants	African Elephants
domed head small ears 5 toes on front of feet, 4 on back one finger on trunk males have tusks, females have tushes (short tusks) males can reach 6 tonnes and 10 feet in height females are half the size of males 19-22 months gestation (before baby is born)	straight back enormous ears two fingesr on trunk coarser and fewer teeth 4 toes on front of feet, 3 on back extra vertabrae in lumbar section of spine males and females have tusks tusks are larger than Asian Males can reach 9 tonnes and 12 feet in height females also half the size of males gestation a little longer

Elephant families are run by an older female who usually travels with her young and their young. The male elephants tend to stay together in 'bachelor' herds. When a male is interested in mating, he will go to the female group, do it's business and leave.

Elephants are herbivores which means they eat plants, not meat. They generally eat fruits, leaves, small twigs and other plants found around them. They can eat up to 500 pounds of vegetation a DAY!

Background, bar and home graphics were made by me. They are for this
site only. © 2003 Kathleen Garber. Unless otherwise stated, the material
contained in this site is mine. That is © 1997 Kathleen Garber. You may use the material
from this site authored by me for personal use (e.g. BOS) but you may NOT
sell copies or post this on your webpage. If you are unsure if you can use something
on this page, please contact me first.