b) Elephant
c) Angry Woman
That's right, the correct answer is b (although an argument could be made for c as well)! Today's fact is all about the elephant. There are three species of elephant, including the African, forest, and Asian Elephant, although it is only the African Elephant that calls Kruger his home.
So I know the elephants from the Jungle Book are Asian Elephants, but I need my Disney reference for the day and it's a really good scene to get into an elephant mood. So, let the facts begin!
The African elephant is the largest living terrestrial animal. It has large ears that enable heat loss, and a trunk that acts as a fifth limb, a sound amplifier and a method of touch. The African elephant's trunk ends in two opposing lips, which differs fro the single lip of the Asian elephant's trunk. Male African elephants can stand up to 13 feet tall and weigh up to 13,330 pounds. The difference in size between male and female is considerable: females reach a height of 8.5 feet and only weigh up to about 7,000 pounds. Elephants have a total of four molars, each weighing about 11 pounds and measuring about 12 inches long. Elephants are able to replace their teeth six times, lasting them to about 40-60 years of age. When it runs out of teeth, the elephant will likely die of starvation. This is a very common cause of death. Their tusks are firm teeth, formed from the second set of incisors. They are used for digging for roots and stripping bark off trees, for fighting each other during mating season, and for defending themselves against predators. Their tusks can weigh between 50-100 pounds and can grow up to 8 feet long. Both male and female African elephants have tusks.
African elephant society is based around family units consisting of about 10 animals made up of closely related females and their young. Each unit is let by an old female matriarch. Elephants are most fertile between the ages of 25 and 45, and calves are born after a gestation period of almost two years. Elephants are capable of using vocalizations that are beyond the hearing range of humans. They eat up to 990 pounds of vegetation per day, but only 40% of this is digested because they have a relatively inefficient digestive system.
African Elephants are highly intelligent, and are considered one of the world's most intelligent species. They have a very large and convoluted neocortex, a trait shared with humans, apes, and certain dolphin species. Its brain is similar to that of humans' in terms of structure and complexity. In fact, the elephants cortex has as many neurons as a human brain. They demonstrate a wide variety of behaviors, including those indicating grief, learning, mimicry, art, play, humor, altruism, use of tools, compassion, cooperation, self-awareness, memory, and possibly even language. The elephant in the video below is an Asian Elephant, but it is the same idea.
It is classified as vulnerable, with less than 10,000 wild elephants around in 2006. Poaching for ivory remains the largest threat to the African Elephant, although some states allow sport hunting of elephants. Another issue in elephant conservation is human encroachment into natural areas where the elephants live.
What I've taken away from the last two days: If elephants and hyenas join together, they will take over the world. That is all.
CHEETAH TIME!!!
Cheetahs CANNOT eat elephants. Sometimes the cubs have to learn the hard way...
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