Interesting Asian elephant facts from the World Book Encyclopedia
The body of an Asian elephant
- The height of an adult elephant about equals the animal’s length
Skin and hair
- Elephants have grey, wrinkled skin that hangs in loose folds.
- The skin of an adult measures up to 3cm think, however it is surprisingly tender. Some insects, including flies and mosquitoes, can bite into the skin
- Elephants are called pachyderms, a term that comes from a Greek word meaning “thick-skinned”
- Elephants, unlike other mammals, do not have a layer of fat under their skin to protect them from the cold. They get stomach cramps if the temperature drops below about 2 degrees
- An elephant has no sweat glands, and so it must cool of in other ways. It may get rid of excess body heat by flapping its enormous ears or by spraying water on itself. Elephants also stay cool by playing in mud. The mud dries on their skin and thus shields it from the sun.
- At birth, elephants are covered with brown hair. This hair becomes black through the years, and much of it wears off. Adult elephants have so little hair that they appear almost hairless. Patches of black bristles may grow around the ears, eyes and mouth, and the end of the tail has a bunch of long bristles.
Trunk
- An elephant’s trunk is a combined nose and upper lip.
- It consists of a strong, flexible, boneless mass of flesh.
- The trunk of an adult elephant measures about 1.5 metres long
- An elephant breathes and smells with its trunk and uses it when eating and drinking.
- An elephant sniffs the air and the ground almost constantly with its trunk.
- It carries food and water to its mouth with its trunk.
- The trunk of an adult can hold about 6 litres of water
- An elephant grasps objects with its trunk much as a person does with a hand
- The trunk can carry a log that weighs over 250kg
- The tip of the trunk can also pick up an object as small as a coin.
- An elephant also uses its trunk to stroke other elephants.
- When fighting, the elephant may use its trunk to grasp the enemy, but sometimes the trunk is protected by curling in under the chin
Tusks and teeth
- An elephants tusks are actually long, curved upper teeth called incisors
- They are made from ivory
- About 2/3rd of each tusk extends from the upper jaw. The rest is in the skull.
- Elephants use their tusks to dig for food and to fight.
- Most Asian females and some Asian male elephants have no tusks
- Elephants also have four molars (back teeth). The molars of an adult may measure 30cm long and weigh 4kg. These teeth have jagged edges that help grind food. One molar lies on each side of both jaws, and additional molars form in the back of the mouth. The molars in front gradually wear down and drop out, and the ones at the back push forward and replace them. An elephant grows six sets of molars during its lifetime. Each set consists of four teeth. The last set of molars appears when the elephant is about 40 years old
Senses of an Asian elephant
- The trunk provides a keen sense of smell, and elephants depend on this sense more than any other. They frequently raise their trunks high in the air to catch the scent of food or enemies.
- An elephant can smell a human from 1.6km away
- Elephants also have good hearing. Their huge ears pick up sounds of other animals from as far as 3km away. When an elephant is curious about a sound, its ears stand straight out.
- Elephants have poor sight and are colour blind. Their eyes are small in relation to the enormous head. An elephant cannot turn its head completely, and so it can see only in the front and to the sides. The animal must turn around to see anything behind it
Intelligence of an Asian elephant
- Elephants have one of the largest brains and rank high in intelligence among animals
- Elephants have an excellent memory and rarely forget what they learn. They can remember both pleasant and unpleasant experiences years later.
Food for Asian elephants
- Elephants eat grass, shrubs, leaves, roots, bark, branches, fruit and water plants
- Elephants especially like bamboo, berries, coconuts, corn, dates, plums and sugar cane
- Elephants do not eat the flesh of other animals
- Wild Asian elephants eat about 295kg of food daily
- Wild elephants drink up to 150 litres of water a day and can live with water for about 3 days.
Elephant travel
- The padded feet of an elephant enable the animal to walk and run with surprisingly little noise.
- Elephants walk at a speed of 5-10km per hour. An angry elephant can run at 40km per hour for a short distance
To visit elephants at the Mondulkiri Project click here
