Elephants are mammals, and the largest land animals alive today. There are three living species: the African Bush Elephant, the African Elephant and the Asian Elephant (also known as the Indian Elephant).
The word “elephant” has its origins in the Greek ,meaning “ivory” or “elephant”. The elephant’s gestation period is 22 months, the longest of any land animal. At birth it is common for an elephant calf to weigh 120 kilograms. An elephant may live as long as 70 years, sometimes longer. The largest elephant ever recorded was shot in Angola in 1956. This male weighed about 12,000 kg , with a shoulder height of 4.2 m , a metre taller than the average male African elephant. The smallest elephants, about the size of a calf or a large pig, were a prehistoric species that lived on the island of Crete during the Pleistocene epoch.
Elephants are symbols of wisdom in Asian cultures, and are famed for their memory and high intelligence, and are thought to be on par with cetaceans and hominids. Aristotle once said the elephant was “the beast which passeth all others in wit and mind.”
Elephants are increasingly threatened by human intrusion and poaching. Once numbering in the millions, the African elephant population has dwindled to between 470,000 and 690,000 individuals. The elephant is now a protected species worldwide, with restrictions in place on capture, domestic use, and trade in products such as ivory. Elephants generally have no natural predators, although lions may take calves and occasionally adults. In some areas, lions may regularly take to preying on elephants.
African elephants
The Elephants of the genus Loxodonta, known collectively as African elephants, are currently found in 37 countries in Africa. African elephants are distinguished from Asian elephants in several ways, the most noticeable being their ears. Africans’ ears are much larger. The African is typically larger than the Asian and has a concave back. Both African males and females have external tusks and are usually less hairy than their Asian cousins.
African elephants have traditionally been classified as a single species comprising two distinct subspecies, namely the savanna elephant and the forest elephant , but recent DNA analysis suggests that these may actually constitute distinct species. While this split is not universally accepted by experts a third species of African elephant has also been proposed.
The Asian elephant
The Asian elephant is smaller than the African. It has smaller ears, and typically, only the males have large external tusks. The world population of Asian elephants – also called Indian Elephants or Elephas maximus – is estimated to be around 60,000, about a tenth of the number of African elephants. More precisely, it is estimated that there are between 38,000 and 53,000 wild elephants and between 14,500 and 15,300 domesticated elephants in Asia with perhaps another 1,000 scattered around zoos in the rest of the world.The Asian elephants‘ decline has possibly been more gradual with the causes primarily being poaching and habitat destruction by human encroachment.
Body characteristics
Trunk
The proboscis, or trunk, is a fusion of the nose and upper lip, elongated and specialized to become the elephant’s most important and versatile appendage. African elephants are equipped with two fingerlike projections at the tip of their trunk, while Asians have only one. According to biologists, the elephant’s trunk may have over forty thousand individual muscles in it, making it sensitive enough to pick up a single blade of grass, yet strong enough to rip the branches off a tree. Some sources indicate that the correct number of muscles in an elephant’s trunk is closer to one hundred thousand.
Tusks
The tusks of an elephant are its second upper incisors. Tusks grow continuously; an adult male’s tusks will grow about 18 cm a year. Tusks are used to dig for water, salt, and roots; to debark trees, to eat the bark; to dig into baobab trees to get at the pulp inside; and to move trees and branches when clearing a path. In addition, they are used for marking trees to establish territory and occasionally as weapons.
Teeth
Elephants’ teeth are very different from those of most other mammals. Over their lives they usually have 28 teeth. These are:
* The two upper second incisors: these are the tusks.
* The milk precursors of the tusks.
* 12 premolars, 3 in each side of each jaw.
* 12 molars, 3 in each side of each jaw.
Unlike most mammals, which grow baby teeth and then replace them with a permanent set of adult teeth, elephants have cycles of tooth rotation throughout their entire life. After one year the tusks are permanent, but the molars are replaced six times in an average elephant’s lifetime.
Skin
Elephants are called pachyderms, which means thick-skinned animals. An elephant’s skin is extremely tough around most parts of its body and measures about 2.5 centimetres thick. However, the skin around the mouth and inside of the ear is paper thin. Normally, the skin of an Asian is covered with more hair than its African counterpart. This is most noticeable in the young. Asian calves are usually covered with a thick coat of brownish red fuzz. As they get older, this hair darkens and becomes more sparse, but it will always remain on their heads and tails.
Legs and Feet
An elephant’s legs are great straight pillars, as they must be to support its bulk. The elephant needs less muscular power to stand because of its straight legs and large pad-like feet. For this reason an elephant can stand for very long periods of time without tiring. In fact, African elephants rarely lie down unless they are sick or wounded. Indian elephants, in contrast, lie down frequently.
The feet of an elephant are nearly round. African elephants have three nails on each hind foot, and four on each front foot. Indian elephants have four nails on each hind foot and five on each front foot. Beneath the bones of the foot is a tough, gelatinous material that acts as a cushion or shock absorber. Under the elephant’s weight the foot swells, but it gets smaller when the weight is removed. An elephant can sink deep into mud, but can pull its legs out readily because its feet become smaller when they are lifted.
Ears
The large flapping ears of an elephant are also very important for temperature regulation. Elephant ears are made of a very thin layer of skin stretched over cartilage and a rich network of blood vessels. On hot days, elephants will flap their ears constantly, creating a slight breeze. This breeze cools the surface blood vessels, and then the cooler blood gets circulated to the rest of the animal’s body. The hot blood entering the ears can be cooled as much as ten degrees Fahrenheit before returning to the body. Differences in the ear sizes of African and Asian elephants can be explained, in part, by their geographical distribution. Africans originated and stayed near the equator, where it is warmer. Therefore, they have bigger ears. Asians live farther north, in slightly cooler climates, and thus have smaller ears.
Elephant calves
Elephant social life revolves around breeding and raising of the calves. A female will usually be ready to breed around the age of thirteen, at which time she will seek out the most attractive male to mate with. Females are generally attracted to bigger, stronger, and, most importantly, older males. Such a reproductive strategy tends to increase their offspring’s chances of survival.
After a twenty-two-month pregnancy, the mother will give birth to a calf that will weigh about 113 kg and stand over 76 cm tall. Elephants have a very long childhood. They are born with fewer survival instincts than many other animals. Instead, they must rely on their elders to teach them the things they need to know. Today, however, the pressures humans have put on the wild elephant populations, from poaching to habitat destruction, mean that the elderly often die at a younger age, leaving fewer teachers for the young.
All members of the tightly knit female group participate in the care and protection of the young. Since everyone in the herd is related, there is never a shortage of baby-sitters. In fact, a new calf is usually the centre of attention for all herd members. All the adults and most of the other young will gather around the newborn, touching and caressing it with their trunks. The baby is born nearly blind and at first relies, almost completely, on its trunk to discover the world around it.
African v. Asian Elephants
African elephants have long been reputed to not be domesticable, but some entrepreneurs have succeeded by bringing Asian mahouts from Sri Lanka to Africa. In Botswana, Uttum Corea has been working with African elephants and has several young tame elephants near Gaborone. African elephants are more temperamental than Asian elephants, but are easier to train. Because of their more sensitive temperaments, they require different training methods than Asian elephants and must be trained from infancy hence Corea worked with orphaned elephants. African elephants are now being used for safaris. Corea’s elephants are also used to entertain tourists and haul logs.
A tale from my God’s Own Country
You may have definitely heard of kerala, the God’s own country. If you wonder what else you can do beside cruising on the backwaters, getting an ayurvedic massage and messing with the sands, you should reshuffle your thoughts, because aptly you are in God’s own country. You will always find something or the other to elevate your spirits – be it mist-clad mountains or handsomely decorated elephants at Thrissur. ‘Puram’, the most colourful temple festival of Thrissur (or Trichur, as is known locally), attracts thousands of people to witness the grand elephant procession. Apparantly, no celebration in Kerala is complete without an elephant pageant. The gentle pachyderm has been revered a noble position and accorded the privilege of fetching numerous gods and goddesses of this land. Interestingly, many well-to-do families in Kerala, until a few years ago, owned an elephant which was considered as a member of the household.
A Festival For The People, By The People And With The People
Considered to be a people’s festival, the ‘Pooram’ is held at the Thekkinkadu Maidan outside the Vadakkunathan Temple in the Malayali month of Medam (April-May). Beautifully caparisoned elephants in two processions representing the Thiruvambadi and Paramekkavu temples, compete to create impressive sights and sounds. The celebration eventuates in the early hours of the dawn and continues till the break of the next day. Each group is allowed to perform with a maximum of fifteen elephants and extensive efforts are made by each party to insure the best elephants of South India and the most colourful and artistic cloaks, several kinds of which are raised on the elephants during the display.
The commissioning of elephants and parasols is done while maintaining an utmost secrecy by each party to surpass the other. The mammoths decorated with gold ornaments, each ridden with three priests, are a splendid sight to behold. Tourists can crowd at the maidan with their loved ones and see the elephants stand still, ears flapping nonchalantly. Soon a magnificent work of fireplay will enchant you as hundreds of cylindrical drums of the Chenda Melam orchestra rise to a deafning crescendo. The procession of the Thiruvambadi Pooram to the grounds of Vadakkunnatha Temple and back is not only fascinating, but much more than that. Listen to the magical euphony of the ‘Panchavadyam’, a combination of five percussion and wind instruments, a joy to the ears that is to be felt to be described. The revelry continues all night with the Vadakkunathan Temple act as a backdrop in a blaze of coloured lights.
Choose Your Way
The Thrissur ‘Puram’ being one of the most celebrated festivals of this southern state of Kerala, attracts thousands of spectators during the festive time. Special KSRTC buses are also regulated between Thrissur and other destinations like Guruvayur, Ernakulam, Palakkad, Coimbatore, Kozhikode and Trivandrum. The nearest airhead is the Cochin International Airport at Nedumbassery, 45 km from Thrissur. One can fly upto there, then get a cab to reach the festive destination. However, if you are planning to come from Ernakulam (79 km) or Trivandrum (275 km), you have to drive on NH 47 that links Salem to Kanyakumari.
