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 is said to
have over forty thousand individual muscles in it[1], 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 nearer to one hundred thousand. [2]
Most herbivores (plant
eaters, like the elephant) are adapted with teeth for cutting and tearing off
plant materials. However, except for the very young or infirm, elephants always
use their trunks to tear up their food and then place it in their mouth. They
will graze on grass or reach up into trees to grasp leaves, fruit, or entire
branches. If the desired food item is too high up, the elephant will wrap its
trunk around the tree or branch and shake its food loose or sometimes simply
knock the tree down altogether. The trunk is also used for drinking. Elephants
suck water up into the trunk (up to fifteen quarts [14.2 litres] at a time) and
then blow it into their mouth. Elephants also inhale water to spray on their
body during bathing. On top of this watery coating, the animal will then spray
dirt and mud, which act as a protective sunscreen.
This appendage also plays a
key role in many social interactions. Familiar elephants will greet each other
by entwining their trunks, much like a handshake. They also use them while
play-wrestling, caressing during courtship, and for dominance displays - a
raised trunk can be a warning or threat, while a lowered trunk can be a sign of
submission. Elephants can defend themselves very well by flailing their trunk
at unwanted intruders or by grasping and flinging them.
An elephant also relies on
its trunk for its highly developed sense of smell. Raising the trunk up in the
air and swivelling it from side to side, like a periscope, it can determine the
location of friends, enemies, and food sources.
The tusks of an elephant
are its second upper incisors. Tusks grow continuously; an adult male's tusks
will grow about seven inches 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.
Like humans who are
typically right- or left-handed, elephants are usually right- or left-tusked.
The dominant tusk, called the master tusk, is generally shorter and more
rounded at the tip from wear. Both male and female African elephants have large
tusks that can reach over 10 ft (3 m) in length and weigh over 200 lb (90 kg).
In the Asian species, only the males have large tusks. Female Asians have tusks
which are very small or absent altogether. Asian males can have tusks as long
as the much larger Africans, but they are usually much slimmer and lighter; the
heaviest recorded is 86 lb (39 kg). The tusk of both species is mostly made of
calcium phosphate in the form of apatite. As a piece of living tissue, it is
relatively soft (compared with other minerals such as rock), and the tusk, also
known as ivory, is strongly favoured by artisans for its carvability. The
desire for elephant ivory has been one of the major factors in the dramatic
decline of the world's elephant population.
Some extinct relatives of
elephants had tusks in their lower jaws also (e.g. Tetrabelodon), or
instead (e.g. Dinotherium).
Elephants' teeth are very
different from those of most other mammals. Over their lives they usually have
28 teeth. These are:
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 other teeth are replaced five times in an
elephant's life. The teeth do not emerge from the jaws vertically like with
human teeth. Instead, they have a horizontal progression, like a conveyor belt.
New teeth grow in at the back of the mouth, pushing older teeth toward the
front, where they wear down with use and the remains fall out. When an elephant
becomes very old, the last set of teeth is worn to stumps, and it must rely on
softer foods to chew. Very elderly elephants often spend their last years exclusively
in marshy areas where they can feed on soft wet grasses. Eventually, when the
last teeth fall out, the elephant will be unable to eat and will die of
starvation. Were it not for tooth wearout, their metabolism would allow them to
live much longer. Rupert Sheldrake has proposed this as an explanation for the
elephant graveyards. However, as more habitat is destroyed, the elephants'
living space becomes smaller and smaller; the elderly no longer have the
opportunity to roam in search of more appropriate food and will, consequently,
die of starvation at an earlier age.
Tusks in the lower jaw are
also second incisors. These grew out large in Dinotherium and some mastodons,
but in modern elephants they disappear early without erupting.
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 cm (1 in) 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.
The species of elephants
are typically grayish in colour, but the Africans very often appear brown or
reddish from wallowing in mud holes of coloured soil. Wallowing is actually a
very important behaviour in elephant society. Not only is it important for
socialization, but the mud acts as a sunscreen, protecting their skin from
harsh ultraviolet radiation. Though tough, an elephant's skin is very
sensitive. Without regular mud baths to protect it from burning, as well as from
insect bites and moisture loss, an elephant's skin would suffer serious damage.
After bathing, the elephant will usually use its trunk to blow dirt on its body
to help dry and bake on its new protective coat. As elephants are limited to
smaller and smaller areas, there is less water available, and local herds will
often come too close over the right to use these limited resources.
Wallowing also aids the
skin in regulating body temperatures. Elephants spend every day fighting an
uphill battle to stay cool. They have a very difficult time releasing heat
through the skin because, in proportion to their body size, they have very
little of it. The ratio of an elephant's mass to the surface area of its skin
is many times that of a human. Elephants have even been observed lifting up
their legs to expose the soles of their feet, presumably in an effort to expose
more skin to the air. Since wild elephants live in very hot climates, they must
have other means of getting rid of excess heat.
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. 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. However,
Indian elephants lie down frequently. Elephants are the only mammals to have
four knees, most others either have two knees and two elbows, though the knees
are often found in the front legs, or they have four elbows, like cats or dogs.[citation
needed]
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, gelatine-like
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.
An elephant is a good
swimmer and climber, but it can neither trot, run, jump, nor gallop. It has
only one gait, a sort of gliding shuffle, which it can step up to the speed of
a human sprinter. There are few animals that can travel farther in a day than
the elephant.
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.
The ears are also used in
certain displays of aggression and during the males' mating period. If an elephant
wants to intimidate a predator or rival, it will spread its ears out wide to
make itself look more massive and imposing. During the breeding season, males
give off an odor from a gland located behind their eyes. Joyce Poole, a
well-known elephant researcher, has theorized that the males will fan their
ears in an effort to help propel this "elephant cologne" great
distances.
Walking at a normal pace an
elephant covers about 2 to 4 miles an hour (3 to 6 km/h) but they can reach 24
miles an hour (40 km/h) at full speed.
Although the fossil
evidence is uncertain, some scientists believe there is genetic evidence that
the elephant family shares distant ancestry with the Sirenians (sea cows) and
the hyraxes. In the distant past, members of the hyrax family grew to large
sizes, and it seems likely that the common ancestor of all three modern
families was some kind of amphibious hyracoid. One theory suggests that these
animals spent most of their time under water, using their trunks like snorkels
for breathing. Modern elephants have retained this ability and are known to
swim in that manner for up to 6 hours and 50 km.
In the past, there was a
much wider variety of elephant genera, including the mammoths, stegodons and
deinotheria. There was also a much wider variety of species.[14][15]
Elephants are herbivores,
spending 16 hours a day collecting plant food. Their diet is at least 50%
grasses, supplemented with leaves, bamboo, twigs, bark, roots, and small
amounts of fruits, seeds and flowers. Because elephants only digest 40% of what
they eat, they have to make up for their digestive system's lack of efficiency
in volume. An adult elephant can consume 300600 lb (140270 kg) of food a day.
60% of that food leaves the elephant's body undigested.
Elephants live in a very
structured social order. The social lives of male and female elephants are very
different. The females spend their entire lives in tightly knit family groups
made up of mothers, daughters, sisters, and aunts. These groups are led by the
eldest female, or matriarch. Adult males, on the other hand, live mostly
solitary lives.
The social circle of the
female elephant does not end with the small family unit. In addition to
encountering the local males that live on the fringes of one or more groups,
the female's life also involves interaction with other families, clans, and
subpopulations. Most immediate family groups range from five to fifteen adults,
as well as a number of immature males and females. When a group gets too big, a
few of the elder daughters will break off and form their own small group. They
remain very aware of which local herds are relatives and which are not.
The life of the adult male
is very different. As he gets older, he begins to spend more time at the edge
of the herd, gradually going off on his own for hours or days at a time.
Eventually, days become weeks, and somewhere around the age of fourteen, the
mature male, or bull, sets out from his natal group for good. While males do
live primarily solitary lives, they will occasionally form loose associations
with other males. These groups are called bachelor herds. The males spend much
more time than the females fighting for dominance with each other. Only the
most dominant males will be permitted to breed with cycling females. The less
dominant ones must wait their turn. It is usually the older bulls, forty to
fifty years old, that do most of the breeding. The dominance battles between
males can look very fierce, but typically they inflict very little injury. Most
of the bouts are in the form of aggressive displays and bluffs. Ordinarily, the
smaller, younger, and less confident animal will back off before any real
damage can be done. However, during the breeding season, the battles can get
extremely aggressive, and the occasional elephant is injured. During this
season, known as musth, a bull will fight with almost any other male it
encounters, and it will spend most of its time hovering around the female
herds, trying to find a receptive mate.
From a study reported in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an Asian elephant housed at
the Bronx Zoo in New York, repeatedly touched a white cross painted above its
eye, when it saw this mark reflected in a large mirror. Another mark made on
the forehead in colourless paint, was ignored, showing that it was not the
smell or feeling which caused the interest. Elephants are among the very small
number of species such as the great apes and Bottlenose Dolphins capable of
self-recognition.[16][17]
African, as well as Asiatic
males will engage in same-sex bonding and mounting. Such encounters are often
associated with affectionate interactions such as kissing, trunk intertwining
or placing trunks in each other's mouth. The encounters are analogous to
heterosexual bouts, one male often extending his trunk along the other's back
and pushing forward with his tusks to signify his intention to mount. Unlike
heterosexual relations, which are always of a fleeting nature, often males will
form a "companionship" consisting of an older individual and one or
two younger attendant males. Same sex relations are common and frequent in both
sexes, with Asiatic elephants in captivity devoting roughly 45% of sexual
encounters to same-sex activity.[18]
It has been discovered that
elephants can communicate over long distances by producing and receiving low
frequency infrasound, a sub-sonic rumbling which can travel through the ground
farther than sound travels in the air. This can be felt by the sensitive skin
of an elephant's feet and trunk, which pick up the resonant vibrations in much
the same way as the flat skin on the head of a drum. To listen attentively, the
whole herd will lift one foreleg from the ground, and face the source of the
sound, or often lay their trunks on the ground - the lifting presumably
increases the ground contact and sensitivity of the remaining legs. This
ability is thought to also aid their navigation by utilizing external sources
of infrasound. Discovery of this new aspect of elephant social communication
and perception is due to breakthroughs in audio technology, which can pick up
frequencies outside the range of the human ear. Pioneering research in elephant
infrasound communication was done by Katy Payne of the Elephant Listening
Project,[19] and is detailed in her book Silent Thunder.
Though this research is still in its infancy, it is helping to solve many prior
mysteries such as how elephants can find distant potential mates, and how
social groups are able to coordinate their movements over an extensive
territory range.
Females (cows) reach sexual
maturity at around 9-12 years of age and become pregnant for the first time, on
average, around age 13. They can reproduce until ages 55-60. Females give birth
at intervals of about every 5 years. An elephant's gestation (pregnancy) period
lasts about 22 months (630-660 days), the longest gestation period of any
mammal, after which one calf typically is born. Twins are rare. Labor ranges in
length from 5 minutes to 60 hours. The average length of labor is 11 hours. At
birth, calves weigh around 90115 kg (200250 lb), and they gain 1 kg (22.5
lb) a day. In the wild, the mother is accompanied by other adult females
(aunts) that protect the young, and baby elephants are raised and nurtured by
the whole family group, practically from the moment they are born.
Elephant social life, in
many ways, 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 offsprings' chances of survival.
After a twenty-two-month
pregnancy, the mother will give birth to a calf that will weigh about 250 lb
and stand over 2½ feet 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. The ability to
pass on information and knowledge to their young has always been a major asset
in the elephant's struggle to survive. 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 center 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.
After the initial
excitement dies down, the mother will usually select several full-time
baby-sitters, or "allomothers", from her group. According to Cynthia
Moss, a well-known researcher, these allomothers will help in all aspects of
raising the calf.[citation needed] They walk with the young
as the herd travels, helping the calves along if they fall or get stuck in the
mud. The more allomothers a baby has, the more free time its mother has to feed
herself. Providing a calf with nutritious milk means the mother has to eat more
nutritious food herself. So, the more allomothers, the better the calf's
chances of survival.
Elephants' foraging
activities help to maintain the areas in which they live:
The threat to the African
elephant presented by the ivory trade is unique to the species. Larger,
long-lived, slow-breeding animals, like the elephant, are more susceptible to
overhunting than other animals. They cannot hide, and it takes many years for
an elephant to grow and reproduce. An elephant needs an average of 300 lb (140
kg) of vegetation a day to survive. As large predators are hunted, the local
small grazer populations (the elephant's food competitors) find themselves on
the rise. The increased number of herbivores ravage the local trees, shrubs,
and grasses. Elephants themselves have few natural predators besides man and,
occasionally, lions.
Another threat to
elephant's survival in general is the ongoing cultivation of their habitats
with increasing risk of conflicts of interest with human cohabitants. These
conflicts kill 150 elephants and up to 100 people per year in Sri Lanka.[20]
Lacking the massive tusks of its African cousins, the Asian elephant's demise
can be attributed mostly to loss of its habitat.As larger patches of forest
disappear, the ecosystem is affected in profound ways. The trees are
responsible for anchoring soil and absorbing water runoff. Floods and massive
erosion are common results of deforestation. Elephants need massive tracts of
land because, much like the slash-and-burn farmers, they are used to crashing
through the forest, tearing down trees and shrubs for food and then cycling
back later on, when the area has regrown. As forests are reduced to small
pockets, elephants become part of the problem, quickly destroying all the vegetation
in an area, eliminating all their resources.
Despite all the fears of
extinction, some scholars claim that the elephant population of Africa as a
whole has actually increased over the past ten years, most notably in Botswana,
which currently is experiencing elephant overpopulation. [3]
Africa's first official
reserve eventually became one of the world's most famous and successful
national parks. Kruger National Park in South Africa first became a reserve
against great opposition in 1898 (then Sabi Reserve). It was deproclaimed and
reproclaimed several times before it was renamed and granted national park
status in 1926. It was to be the first of many.
Of course, there were many
problems in establishing these reserves. For example, elephants range through a
wide tract of land with little regard for national borders. however, when most
parks were created, the boundaries were drawn at the human-made borders of
individual countries. Once a fence was erected, many animals found themselves
cut off from their winter feeding grounds or spring breeding areas. Some
animals died as a result, while some, like the elephants, just trampled through
the fences. This did little to belie their image as a crop-raiding pest. The
more often an elephant wandered off its reserve, the more trouble it got into,
and the more chance it had of being shot by an angry farmer. When confined to
small territories, elephants can inflict an enormous amount of damage to the
local landscapes. Today there are still many problems associated with these
parks and reserves, but there is now little question as to whether or not they
are necessary. As scientists learn more about nature and the environment, it
becomes very clear that these parks may be the elephant's last hope against the
rapidly changing world around them.
Additionally, Kruger
National Park has suffered from elephant overcrowding, at the expense of other
species of wildlife within the reserve. South Africa slaughtered 14,562
elephants in the reserve between 1967 and 1994; it stopped in 1995, mostly due
to international and local pressure. Without action, it is predicted that the
elephant population in Kruger National Park will triple to 34,000 by 2020.[21]
The harvest of elephants,
both legal and illegal, has had some unexpected consequences on elephant
anatomy as well. African ivory hunters, by killing only tusked elephants, have
given a much larger chance of mating to elephants with small tusks or no tusks
at all. The propagation of the absent-tusk gene has resulted in the birth of
large numbers of tuskless elephants, now approaching 30% in some populations
(compare with a rate of about 1% in 1930). Tusklessness, once a very rare
genetic abnormality, has become a widespread hereditary trait.
It is possible, if
unlikely, that continued selection pressure could bring about a complete
absence of tusks in African elephants, a development normally requiring
thousands of years of evolution. The effect of tuskless elephants on the
environment, and on the elephants themselves, could be dramatic. Elephants use
their tusks to root around in the ground for necessary minerals, tear apart
vegetation, and spar with one another for mating rights. Without tusks,
elephant behavior could change dramatically.[22]
Elephants have been working
animals used in various capacities by humans. Seals found in the Indus Valley
suggest that the elephant was first domesticated in ancient India. However,
elephants have never been truly domesticated: the male elephant in his periodic
condition of musth is dangerous and difficult to control. Therefore
elephants used by humans have typically been female, war elephants being an
exception, however: as female elephants in battle will run from a male, only
males could be used in war. It is generally more economical to capture wild
young elephants and tame them than breeding them in captivity (see also
elephant "crushing").
War elephants were used by
armies in the Indian sub-continent, and later by the Persian empire. This use
was adopted by Hellenistic armies after Alexander the Great experienced their
worth against king Porus, notably in the Ptolemaic and Seleucid diadoch
empires. The Carthaginian general Hannibal took elephants across the Alps when
he was fighting the Romans, but brought too few elephants to be of much
military use, although his horse cavalry was quite successful; he probably used
a now-extinct third African (sub)species, the North African (Forest) elephant,
smaller than its two southern cousins, and presumably easier to domesticate. A
large elephant in full charge could cause tremendous damage to infantry, and
cavalry horses would be afraid of them (see Battle of Hydaspes).
Throughout Siam, India, and
most of South Asia elephants were used in the military for heavy labor,
especially for uprooting trees and moving logs, and were also commonly used as
executioners to crush the condemned underfoot.
Elephants have also been
used as mounts for safari-type hunting, especially Indian shikar (mainly
on tigers), and as ceremonial mounts for royal and religious occasions, whilst
Asian elephants have been used for transport and entertainment, and are common
to circuses around the world.
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 (photo) safaris. Corea's elephants are also used to entertain
tourists and haul logs.
Elephants are also commonly
exhibited in zoos and wild animal parks, the former of which has caused
controversy. Animal rights advocates allege that elephants in zoos "suffer
a life of chronic physical ailments, social deprivation, emotional starvation,
and premature death". [4] However, zoos argue that standards for treatment
of elephants are extremely high and that minimum requirements for such things
as minimum space requirements, enclosure design, nutrition, reproduction,
enrichment and veterinary care are set to ensure the wellbeing of elephants in
captivity.
A method of confining
elephants practiced in the Indian Subcontinent is far less physical and brutal,
and more psychological, than earlier means. It is called the "elephant
trap". The following is taken from a newsletter:
From when an elephant is a baby they tie him
for certain periods with a rope to a tree. The young elephant tries his hardest
to escape, he pulls and wriggles and jumps and crawls yet the rope just
tightens and to the tree it remains tied. Learning that, the elephant doesnt
try to escape and accepts his confinement. A couple of years pass and the elephant
is now an adult weighing several tons. Yet the trainer continues to tie the
elephant to the tree with the same rope hes always used, for the simple reason
that the elephant has the concept in his mind that the rope is stronger than
him. Abiding to this conditioning the elephant is trapped for life. To break
free all the elephant has to do is erase that limiting thought for in fact he
is free to go.
Adult male elephants
naturally enter the periodic state called musth (Hindi for madness),
sometimes spelt "must" in English. It is characterised by very
excited and/or aggressive behavior and a thick, tar-like liquid secretion that
discharges through the temporal ducts from the temporal glands on the sides of
the head. Musth is linked to sexual arousal or establishing dominance but this
relationship is far from clear. A musth elephant, wild or domesticated, is
extremely dangerous to humans. Domesticated elephants in India are
traditionally tied to a tree and denied food and water for several days, after
which the musth passes. In zoos, musth is often the cause of fatal accidents to
elephant keepers. Zoos keeping adult male elephants need extremely secure
enclosures, which greatly complicates the attempts to breed elephants in zoos.
Musth is accompanied by a
significant rise in reproductive hormones. Testosterone levels in an elephant
in musth can be as much as 60 times greater than in the same elephant at other
times. However, whether this hormonal surge is the sole cause of musth, or
merely a contributing factor is unknown: scientific investigation of musth is
greatly hindered by the fact that even the most otherwise placid of elephants
may actively try to kill any and all humans. Similarly, the tar-like secretion
remains largely uncharacterised, due to the extreme difficulties of collecting
a sample for analysis.
Although it has often been
speculated that musth is linked to rut, this is unlikely, because the female
elephant's estrus cycle is not seasonally-linked. Furthermore, bulls in musth
have often been known to attack female elephants, regardless of whether or not
the females are in heat.
The Hindi word
"musth" is from the Urdu mast, which in turn is from a Persian
root meaning 'intoxicated'.
The Channel 5 British
television program "The Dark Side of Elephants" (20 March 2006)
stated that during musth:
At least a few elephants
have been suspected to be drunk during their attacks. In December 1998, a herd
of elephants overran a village in India. Although locals reported that nearby
elephants had recently been observed drinking beer which rendered them "unpredictable",
officials considered it the least likely explanation for the attack.[23]
An attack on another Indian village occurred in October 1999, and again locals
believed the reason was drunkenness, but the theory was not widely accepted.[24]
Purportedly drunk elephants raided yet another Indian village again on December
2002, killing six people, which led to killing of about 200 elephants by
locals.[25]
Charles Siebert reports in
his New York Times article An Elephant Crackup? that:
Since the early 1990s, for example, young male
elephants in Pilanesberg National Park and the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve
in South Africa have been raping and killing rhinoceroses; this abnormal
behavior, according to a 2001 study in the journal Pachyderm, has been reported
in a number of reserves in the region.[26]
Rogue elephant is a term for a lone, violently
aggressive wild elephant, separated from the rest of the herd. It is a calque
of the Sinhala term hora aliya. Its introduction to English has been
attributed by the Oxford English Dictionary to Sir James Emerson Tennant, but
this usage may have been pre-dated by William Sirr.
§
§
§
o
§
§
o
§
§
§
§
§
1. The Elephant population in Vietnam
and Laos is undergoing tests to determine if it is a fifth subspecies.
2. The Subfamily Lophodontinae
or Rhynchotheriinae, are placed by some authors within the gomphotheres,
while others consider them as true Elephantidae.
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Elephant&action=history
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html