Completed on April 17th, 2018 for an AP Biology course.
Behavior: The life of the African elephant resembles very much the lives of different animals in the predator-prey system where they play the role of being the prey. Glorified for their ivory tusks, we humans have also played a role in the development of the defense mechanisms of the African elephant.
One of the most important parts of the African Elephant’s life is its family. Elephants grow deep family bonds and live in tight matriarchal groups called a herd or parade. The herd is led by the largest and oldest female of the herd, called the matriarch. Herds can consist up to 100 elephants depending on the terrain and family size. When a baby elephant (calf) is born, the entire matriarch raises and protects it. Around the ages of 12-15 years old, the male elephants leave the family unit to live on their own or temporarily live with other male elephants.
It is most likely through these tight bonds that the defense mechanism has developed. When the herd is threatened, the adult elephants form a circle facing themselves outwards with the calves inside the circle; this leads to the adults being attacked first. To defend themselves, the elephants flail their ears, growl, and trumpet to seem larger and more of a threat. If the threat is advancing, the elephants may charge forward, or the matriarch tries to guide the herd away from the threat rapidly. In cases where one of the elephants is hurt, the matriarch tries to assist that elephant; if the matriarch has been hurt, the herd of elephants clusters around her.
The two different types of charges that the matriarch makes are mock charges and actual charges. Mock charges occur to make the intruder fear the herd and try to make them run away. In the terms of a mock charge, the elephant will raise its trunk and flail its ears to appear larger, shriek through its trunk, and scrape its feet against the soil to express aggression, and sway. If the intruder still advances forward, the elephant will actually charge. In an actual charge, the elephant doesn’t make any threatening sounds or exploit its appearance. Instead, the elephant will curl up their trunk, tilt their head downward, and hold their ears flat to their sides to expose more of their tusks. With this stance, the elephant will rage forward to either stab or crush the intruder. Herds that have more calves and ill family members tend to be more aggressive than herds that aren’t protecting as much.
Morphology: In the prey-predator system, the African Elephant is actually a prey despite its huge size. Although the size of adults makes them invulnerable to becoming prey, the calves often fall prey to animals such as lions, coyotes, and tigers.
The African Elephant is a herbivore, meaning it doesn’t eat meat; only leaves. Since they don’t have long necks, the elephant relies on their trunks to reach up for leaves to eat and down below to reach water to drink. The trunks can also help cool down the elephant by being able to spray the backs of the elephant with water, and dirt from the dry grounds. The tusks of the elephant come in handy when the bark or softwood needs to be peeled off to eat, not only to fight off intruders. Since the African elephant lives in pretty hot climates, it has adapted to many ways to keep cool. One of the most effective ways is through their gigantic ears. No, they’re not exactly fanning themselves. When an elephant flails their ears, the blood in the capillaries of the ears cools down and travels through the body. This helps decrease their blood temperature by up to ten degrees Fahrenheit.
Lifecycle: Out in the wild, female and male elephants live separately as the females live together in the herd and the males live alone or with a few other males after they reach the age of maturity at the ages between 12-15.
After reaching her maturity age, the female elephants go into oestrus four times a year (unless she’s pregnant or nursing a calf). During oestrus, the female elephants release pheromones that attract the males to mate with her. Alongside the release of pheromones, the female also sounds out loud mating calls to the males to let them know that she’s ready to mate. The males that are also sexually mature are able to respond to the scent and calls of these females.
Male elephants also go through periods of higher sexual hormones (testosterone) for a couple months on an annual basis called musth. During musth, the male elephants release pheromones through their urine, and call out mating calls to let the women know that they are ready to mate. This is also the time that the male elephants tend to be more aggressive and show more dominance which attracts the women further because the male exhibits stronger genes.
When deciding to mate, the male touches the female’s vagina to get a sample of both her urine and vaginal secretions to be sure that she is in oestrus. This process is called the flehmen response. If the female is in oestrus and accepting of the male, she will allow themselves to mate. For the younger females, other elephants will stay nearby for protection in case anything goes wrong. After the mating, the male and female spend time together for up to 2 weeks before the male leaves the female again, and he may mate again if he’s still in musth.
A female elephant stays pregnant for 22 months. When giving birth, the female puts most of her weight onto her hind legs as the other females of the herd circle her. Labor for the female elephant lasts up to 2 hours, and once the baby is born, the herd full of women raises the calf without the help of a father or any other male. When the baby is firstborn, its trunk is too weak to be controlled and it sucks milk from its mother. Only after several months does the baby elephant gain control of its trunk muscles. The female calves will live with her herd for the rest of her life as the males break away at maturity.
Conservation Status: Although the African elephants aren’t considered to be endangered, they are hunted despite international laws that try to prevent them from being poached. The African elephant’s tusks of ivory still remain at very high prices and values for trophies and jewelry.
The efforts that are being made to protect the elephants are an array of companies and funds. One of the largest funds is the African Elephant Conservation Fund. The purpose of this fund is to support the 37 elephant ranges with financial support for essential protection activities like anti-poaching.
Habitat: There are two different subspecies of African elephants that inhabit the 37 different countries in Africa; the forest and savannah elephants. The forest elephants are mostly found in Central Africa and Western Africa’s equatorial forests, the savannah elephants are mostly found throughout the continent’s grassy plains and bushlands. The African elephants do not create homes for themselves like burrows or dens. Their natural surroundings are their homes.
The characteristics of the niche of the African elephant vary between the subspecies. The forest elephant lives in places where there are more trees while the savannah elephant lives in the more dry areas. For both of the subspecies, the morphology remains the same; they use their trunk to reach high up and down below; ears to cool help cool themselves down, and so on.
Order and Family Characteristics: The African elephant comes from the scientific family of Elephants and the order of Proboscidea and Therapsid. The two different species of elephants are the African elephant and the Asian elephant.
Both, African and Asian elephants, have a lot of similarities. These similarities are very easy to identify, both have long trunks, huge and floppy ears, are very large in size, and have many other obvious similar physical features. Despite living on two separate continents, both species have a whole lot in common; from physical features to defense mechanisms, and all the way to lifecycles.
The characteristics of the order Proboscidea are found also in the physical features of the elephants. Proboscidea can be identified by the long trunk that forms from the upper lip of the elephant which is used for a variety of actions such as breathing, grasping objects, and sucking up water. Another prominent characteristic of the Proboscidea is the tusks of the elephant that are teeth. Tusks, which have many purposes including food hunting and defense, have been traced back to extinct species of the Proboscidea like the mammoth. Tusks, just like human teeth, fall out a year after the baby elephant is a year old and then grow a new set of adult tusks that continue to grow throughout adulthood. The Proboscidea can also be identified by the thickness of its legs and its large size.
The African elephant also belongs in the order Therapsid. The characteristics of the Therapsids are found in the vertical positioning of the legs and arms beneath the body, differentiating from animals like lizards where the limbs are sprawled beneath their body. Another characteristic is found in the jaws and teeth. The jaws of some Therapsids are more complex and powerful than others where the teeth differentiate into frontal incisors for nipping, lateral canines for puncturing and tearing apart, and molars for shearing and chopping. Lastly, a prominent characteristic is the fur and endothermy. Therapsids have the ability to conduct and conserve heat within the body, making most therapsids to be warm-blooded.
Citations:
Defenders of Wildlife. (2018). Basic Facts About Elephants. April 15, 2018,
https://defenders.org/elephant/basic-facts
Debra Born. (N/A). SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR / TERRITORIALITY / PREDATION / LEARNING with literature reports for the African Elephant – Loxodonta africana. April 15, 2018,
Laura Corona. (2017). The Adaptations of Elephants for Survival. April 15, 2018,
http://animals.mom.me/adaptations-elephants-survival-6658.html
Rose Kivi. (2017). How Do Elephants Mate?. April 15, 2018,
https://sciencing.com/elephants-mate-4574022.html
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. (2017). African Elephant Conservation Fund. April 15, 2018,
https://www.fws.gov/international/wildlife-without-borders/african-elephant-conservation-fund.html
Rainforest Alliance. (2018). African Elephant. April 15, 2018,
University of Bristol. (2011). Features of Proboscideans. April 15, 2018,
http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Palaeofiles/Elephants/features%20of%20proboscideans.html
Wikipedia. (N/A). Therapsids. April 15, 2018,
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