Let's start with arithmetic:

- the height of the Asian elephant - up to 3 meters, weight - up to 5 tons;

– His heart weighs 12 kilograms. It beats 40 times per minute. And about 12 times in the same time his lungs breathe;

– normal temperature elephant body - 35.9 degrees;

- the length of the intestine - about 40 meters;

- in 18 hours, an elephant can eat 360 kilograms of any food. Drinks about 90 liters of water per day;

- the elephant sleeps only 2-4 hours a day;

- pregnancy in elephants - 20-22 months. She usually gives birth to her first baby elephant at the age of 10 years. And in a lifetime brings them about only 7;

- a newborn baby elephant weighs 100 kilograms, its height is about a meter. An elephant gives birth while standing;

- fat content of milk - up to 20 percent. She feeds milk to a baby elephant for about six months. But sometimes 2-3 years;

The maximum age of an elephant recorded in captivity is 67 years. But in the wild, in the jungle, elephants usually live only up to 35-37 years;

- an elephant smells water at a distance of up to a kilometer (and some claim that up to five!). "Tame elephants are able to smell real banknotes from counterfeit ones," writes Italian biologist Lino Penati;

- despite its huge height and weight, the elephant, stepping on the ground, presses on it with a minimum load: only 600 grams per square centimeter of surface. He walks very quietly, "making no more noise than a leaf falling on a calm surface of the water" (Lino Penati);

- the speed of a peacefully wandering herd of elephants is 7 kilometers per hour. But they can easily increase it to 15 kilometers. An enraged elephant is chasing a car at a speed of 40 kilometers per hour.

Did you know that a million years ago, 452 species of different prehistoric elephants (at least known to science) roamed the earth. Now there are only two types left: the womb is African and Asian, or Indian. Before, some 5-6 thousand years ago, African elephant lived in the Sahara (then there was no desert here). In the Sinai, he met with an Asian elephant, which in the second millennium BC was found in present-day Turkey, and in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, in Persia, China. Now its range is limited to the island of Sri Lanka, the southwest and east of India, Burma, Indochina, Malaya, Sumatra, Kalimantan. It must be said that in these countries the elephant is also heavily exterminated and is found only in places. In our time, only 400 thousand elephants, apparently, have survived in Asia and Africa. Every year, 45,000 of them are killed. Make some simple calculations, and it will be clear to you how long elephants will live on earth ...

The Asian elephant has four subspecies.

Indian elephant. The most numerous: there are about 20 thousand of them left, counting the tamed ones.

Ceylon elephant. He is often tuskless ("only one in ten males has tusks"). The number is about 2.5 thousand.

Sumatran elephant. Heavily destroyed.

Malay elephant. Approximately 750 animals.

There were four more subspecies: Mesopotamian, Persian, Chinese and Javanese. But they were exterminated in antiquity and in the Middle Ages.

"The Macedonians stopped at the sight of the animals and the king himself. The elephants standing among the soldiers looked like towers from a distance. Por was taller ordinary people, but he seemed especially tall thanks to the elephant on which he rode and which was as large as the rest, as the king was taller than other Indians.

(Quint Curtius Rufus)

"Finally, I see the danger worthy of me"- whispered Alexander the Great . Before him stood the army of the Indian king Por. 200 elephants staggered at 30 meter intervals filled with infantry. It was in 326 BC at the Battle of the Gidasp River.

“Our spears are long and strong enough,” Alexander said, “they can just be used against elephants ... This kind of protection, like elephants, is dangerous ... They attack the enemy by order, and their own out of fear. - Having said this, the king was the first to drive horse ahead."

The battle began and was extremely stubborn.

"It was especially scary to watch when elephants grabbed armed people with their trunks and served them over their heads to their drovers."

"The Macedonians, these recent victors, were already looking around, looking for where to run ... So, the battle was inconclusive: the Macedonians either pursued the elephants, or fled from them; and until late, such variable success continued until late, until they began to cut the legs of the elephants intended for Slightly curved swords were called copids, they were used to cut the trunks of elephants ...

And now the elephants, finally, exhausted from their wounds, in their flight brought down their own ... So, the Indians left the battlefield in fear of the elephants, which they could no longer tame.

And this is almost always the case: most often there was little benefit from elephants for their troops, but a lot of harm!

Poured tobacco into the dough

And, nevertheless, almost all the commanders of antiquity sought to acquire war elephants. Even Caesar, who did just fine without them.

Elephants participated in many battles of antiquity. Usually several dozen elephants were brought into battle, but sometimes almost half a thousand, for example, in the battle of Ipsus in 301 BC, where the elephants decided the outcome of the battle (as you can see, it happened!).

Armor was put on war elephants. Swords were tied to the trunk, and poisoned spears were tied to the tusks. A whole fortification rose on the back - a wooden tower protected by metal sheets. It housed archers and spearmen, and often the "general headquarters" of the entire army.

There was also anti-tank, that is, anti-elephant, artillery - special ballistas and catapults that hit thick-skinned giants. There were also special ones, as we have already seen from the story of Rufus, axes and sickles that cut the legs and trunks of elephants.

In the battle of Tapsa, near a small North African city, in one of Caesar's wars, the living "tanks" launched their last and again unsuccessful offensive. This is in the "European", so to speak, theater of operations, within the boundaries of the Roman Empire. However, in tropical countries, long after Caesar, elephants fought in the ranks with soldiers. For example, Jalal ad-Din Akbar, the emperor of the Mughal Empire in India (1556–1605), considered it expedient to bring elephants into battle when taking the Khitor fortress, which was defended by 8 thousand soldiers. And he was an excellent commander. An eyewitness writes:

"The spectacle was too terrible to be described in words, for the enraged animals crushed these brave fighters like locusts, killing three out of every four."

And today the history of military elephants has its continuation. During World War II, the XIV British Army operating in Burma had 200 elephants. They transported 20 thousand tons of military equipment in the midst of the rainy season.

There were also elephants in the Japanese army, which launched its unsuccessful invasion of India in March 1944. Here, for the first time in history, living "tanks" of antiquity and modern military equipment met on the battlefield. English dive bombers attacked Japanese transports, and in one of these raids 40 elephants were killed at once.

The last collision between elephants and planes was during the Vietnam War. Then one American bomber fired machine guns and cannons at a column of 12 pack elephants and killed 9 animals.

"But why, when a wild herd is being herded, don't the elephants pull the people off the tame elephants?

I often asked myself this question. I cannot answer it. All I know is that a man who sits on the back of a tame elephant remains in the midst of a wild herd in complete safety.

(Charles Mayer)

Elephants do not breed well in captivity. For example, in the zoological gardens of Europe and America between 1902 and 1965 only 67 baby elephants were born. And then half of them died before they could be raised.

It is hardly more successful to get offspring in Asia from working elephants. But there is another reason that encourages elephant owners to avoid breeding them - economic: elephants have a long pregnancy (longer than even whales), elephants eat a lot, and a baby elephant needs to be raised and fed for a long time before it becomes fit for work ( up to 10 years). Therefore, it is more profitable to replenish the herd of working elephants by catching and training wild ones. This kind of hunting is called khedda (often the kraal, where wild elephants are driven, is also denoted).

They collect up to fifty of the strongest working elephants and up to two thousand beaters. First, they track down a herd of wild elephants in the jungle, surround it and do not allow it to go far. And at this time, a corral - kraal - is being built nearby. Usually it is a long corridor of thick logs 200 meters long. On the side where the elephants are driven, the entrance to it is surrounded by wings diverging to the outside - a kind of funnel turns into a kraal with a narrow throat. At the opposite end of the kraal is a sliding door. And behind it is a fenced arena with a diameter of twelve meters.

Here the kraal is ready - wild elephants are driven into it. It happens that a hundred elephants are driven there. Then every night the door leading to the arena is raised. There is a pile of sugar cane in the arena. And when, finally, some captive animals, hungry, decide to go out of the corridor into the arena, the door is immediately lowered behind them. Then, with the help of working elephants, they are tied up and led to the river so that they can drink and swim there. The next stage of transportation is the base camp. Gradually, all the captured elephants are brought to it. There they are separated by height, gender, paint a large number on the sides.

And the training begins. It doesn't last long. Wild elephants, even adults, become tame surprisingly quickly - after a few months.

The professional skills of working elephants are very diverse. They carry logs in teak logging in Burma (the country has 6,000 tame elephants). And they are not dragged along the roads, but often through seemingly completely impenetrable jungles. Here, depending on the terrain, the elephant either carries a log with its trunk, or drags it along the ground through narrow passages between the trees. Often he has to kneel and push the trunk of a heavy tree with his forehead through the rubble and plexus of vines.

Elephants bring their burdens to the gorges and just drop them down, so that later they can go down a steep path and, picking up a log, carry it further, to the river and the timber rafting. They also work on timber rafting: if there is a jam, they enter the water and dismantle the dam.

They plow. Gather firewood for the hearth and fruits for dinner. They carry people. At sawmills, logs are dragged, fed under the saws, carried away and the sawn boards are stacked very carefully. Blow sawdust off them!

But as soon as the bell announces the end of the working day, not a single trunk moves for the sake of "production"!

The working day of elephants is strictly rationed. After two hours of morning work - a break: from ten to three, in the hottest time of the day. Bathing in the river follows, lunch - bananas, sugar cane, leaves of their favorite trees.

Elephants work from June to February, usually only 20 days a month. The three hottest months in Burma are their holidays. On average, a working elephant works 1,300 hours a year.

This is almost 500 hours less than a person in countries with a normal working day.




An elephant's blood temperature: 36 degrees, and he's so huge! And the horse's blood temperature: 37.6 degrees Cat's blood reaches a temperature: 38.6 degrees, despite her excessive cheerfulness! Human friends are not much different from cats, but there is a difference: their temperature is 38.9 degrees. Funny hamsters are not ashamed of their temperature, because at least in some way they will be on a par with an elephant. As you may have guessed, their blood temperature is 36 degrees. The rabbit, oddly enough, has the most heat blood: 39.5 degrees


Let us illustrate the relationship between the size and temperature of the bodies of animals. The body temperatures of mammals do not differ much. They are approximately the same for both the elephant and the little field mouse. However, the rate of heat release in the body of an elephant is about 30 times less. If inside the body of an elephant the release of heat occurred at the same rate as in a mouse, then the released heat would not have time to leave the body of the elephant quickly enough to maintain a normal temperature, the elephant would “fry” in its own skin. The smaller the warm-blooded animal, the greater the rate of heat release must be in order to compensate for losses and maintain body temperature, which ensures the normal functioning of the body, the more food it must eat. The smallest mammals on Earth - Etruscan mice - have a mass of only 1.5 g, and eat twice as much per day. If the Etruscan mouse is left without food for at least a few hours, it will die.

20 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT ELEPHANTS

1. How many elephants are left on earth? Are elephants an endangered species?

On this moment about 600,000 African and 30,000 to 50,000 Indian elephants live on Earth. Approximately 20% are kept in captivity - the exact number is difficult to determine. Due to poaching, the number of African elephants decreased by 50%, from 1.3 million to 600,000, from 1979 to 1989. During this period, 8 elephants (70,000 per year) were killed by poachers every hour, until a ban on ivory came out in 1989. CITES - Washington Convention international trade on endangered species considered both species so prone to extinction that they took one of the first places (Appendix 1) in the Red Book. At the 1997 CITES conference, elephant populations in Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia were listed on Appendix 2. Without any intervention, elephant populations increase only 6% per year, according to studies by the IUCN group ( international union conservation), studying elephants. Elephants need support, and will need even more in the future.

2. Since elephants have protruding thumbs, why aren't they considered primates?

When Carl Linnaeus published his classification of nature, it was based on anatomical differences between what he defined as species. He was a Christian and believed that all living things were created by God. Later, when his classification system began to be used by evolutionists, the system was also used to try to figure out how species come together in terms of evolution. Elephants are considered "primitive ungulates" belonging to the Subugulata group and forming the order Probosciodea (proboscis). The two relatively recent species are divided into two groups (Loxodonta and Elephas) ​​belonging to the family Elephantidae. Primates are descended from small animals, tree shrews (Scandentia), which looked like squirrels. Character thumb similar to bats and birds that are not related but have wings. When two species are not related, but have anatomical similarity, this similarity is due to the fact that the animals simply could have developed similar traits, but this does not imply a species relationship.

3. What is the average length of an elephant's trunk and tusks?

tusks African elephants much longer and heavier than the tusks of Indian elephants. The longest known African elephant tusk is 349.2 cm long.

An elephant's trunk has over 4,000 muscles and is over 320 cm long.

4. What is the difference between Asian and Indian elephants? Are they actually the same and which term is considered correct?

There are no differences - it's the same. The common term at present is Asiatic Elephant, but in the past they were called Indian elephant. Since they live in western India, northern China, and Sumatra and Borneo in the east, Asiatic Elephant is a better name than Indian Elephant.

5. What is the volume of an elephant's blood?

An elephant's blood volume is approximately 9.5% - 10% of its body weight.

6. What is the difference between African and Asian elephant ears?

The ears of African elephants are larger than those of Asian ones. One ear of an adult African elephant weighs 85 kg. If an African elephant spreads his ears, then the distance between them will be equal to his height.

7. What top speed can develop a running elephant?

Frightened elephants run at a speed of 16 km / h. For a short distance, they are able to reach speeds of up to 32-40 km / h.

8. How much do elephants eat and drink?

In nature, elephants consume up to 300 kg of grass and leaves per day, containing a large percentage of water. In captivity, they eat approximately 30 kg of hay, 10 kg of carrots or similar vegetables, and 5-10 kg of bread per day. Some zoos give different grains, about 3-10 kg. The diet also includes vitamins, (especially D) and minerals (salt, calcium). Depending on the temperature, elephants drink between 100 and 300 liters per day.

9. Why do elephants have no fur?

Evolutionists believe that the ancestors of elephants were semi-amphibious, or spent a lot of time in the water. Like most waterfowl, they shed their fur during this period, while a thick layer of blubber appeared under their skin as insulation. Some scientists apply this theory also to us - Homo sapiens. Elephants, especially Asian ones, still tend to spend as much time in the water as possible.

10. What is the normal heart rate and breathing of an elephant?

Heart rate standing 25 - 30 beats per minute.

Heart rate lateral 72 - 98 beats per minute.

Breathing - 4 - 6 breaths per minute.

Body temperature - 36 - 37 C.

11. How long does an elephant's pregnancy last?

12. What is the duration of the birth process?

Elephants carry their cubs for about 21 months. In the past, people believed that there was a difference in the duration of pregnancy, depending on the sex of the baby, but this has not yet been proven. Childbirth lasts from two hours or more.

13. What time of year do elephants reproduce?

There are no obvious signs that elephants breed in a particular season. Usually, they give birth every fourth or fifth year.

14. How much does a baby elephant weigh at birth?

Newborn baby elephants weigh between 75 and 150 kg.

15. Does it happen that more than one baby elephant is born?

Very rarely, but it happens. At least two twin births have been reported in India in the past 20 years, both in Tamil Nadu. In America, the birth of twins was recently recorded at the Portland Zoo.

16. Why do elephants sway?

Mainly because they are bored. When they are often left in chains, wiggling becomes a bad habit. They fall into a doze and often fall asleep during this movement. It is possible that elephants sway because the stimulation of the soles encourages blood in the legs to drain through the veins back to the heart. People may assume that elephants are "crazy," but this behavior is as common to them as it is to us to walk back and forth while waiting for a bus in cold weather.

17. What is the maximum age an elephant can live to?

Elephants live about as long as humans. In the wild, they usually die around the age of sixty, and like many ruminants, from starvation. When the last pair of teeth is worn out, they simply cannot chew. In captivity, they live a little longer due to softer food. Unfortunately, only a few (20-30%) elephants in captivity reach this age, many die quite young (25 years old) due to common problems adjusting to new environments, or for physical reasons such as hoof and stomach problems. The oldest known captive-born elephant, Minyak, was born in 1932 at the Hagenbeck Circus, and died in 1986 at the Barnum & Bailey Bros. Circus, USA, at age 54.

18. What is the favorite food of elephants?

Elephants love candy various kinds like people. However, they cannot survive on sweets alone. The main food of elephants in captivity is hay or grass. If such a diet is satisfactory, they may eat various sweets. Elephants' favorite treats are sweet fruits like bananas and apples, or vegetables like carrots. Various breads and biscuits are also very popular. In captivity, strange tastes can develop - for example, one elephant might work hard to get some of the materials, including resin. Like humans, there is a danger of overeating sugar (usually from zoo visitors feeding elephants), and as a result various health problems, such as being overweight or unnatural behavior, such as hanging around the fence for days on end, waiting for visitors to come with sweets. .

19. What kind of food do elephants eat in the wild?

The diet of wild elephants is directly related to their habitat. In southern India, elephants, for example, prefer ficus foliage, while elephants living in Zimbabwe may consume other plants. The source of food also depends on the rainy or dry season. In general, elephants eat various herbs, leaves, fruits and tree bark, which satisfies their need for minerals.

20. What predators do elephants meet in the wild? What animals do elephants get along with or just meet in the wild?

Elephants share habitat with lions, tigers, leopards, wild dogs, and other predators, depending on the habitat. In general, elephants are not afraid of these predators, although lions or wild dogs can drag a newborn baby elephant. Therefore, elephants try to keep predators away.

What climatic conditions are suitable for elephants?

  • So along the equator a belt with raw warm climate. It is under these conditions that a tropical rainforest can exist. It grows wherever the temperature ranges from 20 to 28º C and a lot of precipitation falls annually - 2000 - 4000 mm, and in some places 10,000 mm per year per 1 sq.m (for comparison: in the Moscow region - 700 mm). It is also important when these showers are poured: precipitation should be distributed evenly throughout the year. So, where they grow rainforests, there are no sharp warming or cooling, so the seasons do not change here.
  • The subtropical climate of the Mediterranean is dry, precipitation in the form of rain falls in winter, even mild frosts are extremely rare, summers are dry and hot. In the subtropical forests of the Mediterranean, thickets of evergreen shrubs and low trees predominate. Trees rarely stand, and various herbs and shrubs grow wildly between them. Here grow junipers, noble laurel, strawberry tree, which sheds its bark every year, wild olives, tender myrtle, roses. Such types of forests are characteristic mainly in the Mediterranean, and in the mountains of the tropics and subtropics.
  • Subtropics on the eastern outskirts of the continents are characterized by more humid climate. Precipitation fall unevenly, but it rains more in summer, that is, at the time when vegetation especially needs moisture. It is dominated by dense moist forests from evergreen oaks, magnolias, camphor laurel. Numerous creepers, thickets of tall bamboos and various shrubs enhance the originality of the humid subtropical forest.
  • The subtropical forest differs from the humid tropical forests in a lower species diversity, a decrease in the number of epiphytes and lianas, as well as the appearance of coniferous, tree-like ferns in the forest stand.
  • Previously, in the cool season, elephants went out into the steppes, but now this has become possible only in reserves, since outside of them the steppe has almost everywhere been turned into agricultural land. In summer, along the wooded slopes, elephants rise quite high into the mountains, meeting in the Himalayas at the border of eternal snows, at an altitude of up to 3600 m. Elephants move quite easily through swampy areas and climb mountains. like others large mammal Elephants tolerate cold better than heat. They spend the hottest part of the day in the shade. Most populations today are isolated from each other. Typical habitats are tropical rain forests, semi-evergreen and semi-deciduous forests and swamps. Habitats change seasonally - in the dry season, elephants move to the swampy area, during the rainy season they return to the lowland rainforest.

In the evenings, at exactly five o'clock, at the northern edge of the Kenyan national park Nairobi happens magical and mysterious, at first glance, action. Employees hang colorful woolen blankets from the knotted branches of croton trees. Loud and clear people are shouting: “Kalama! Kitirua! Olare!" And then a group of elephants emerges from the thickets of bushes: eighteen brown heads with large hanging ears. They slowly approach and stop at trees marked with colored blankets, while caretakers shelter each baby elephant to keep him warm before returning home to the Foundation's Nairobi nursery. wildlife David Sheldrick. Elephants are brought here from all over Kenya, many of which have been victims of poachers or clashes with people, and nurse the babies until they begin to feed on their own.

Baby elephants need warmth and help from their parents or people. They don't know how to keep warm. Later, when elephants grow up, they develop a unique ability to regulate their body temperature. Both when it is cool and when it is very hot, the temperature of the elephant keeps well in a rather narrow range of about 36 ± 2 ° C, i.e. close to the temperature human body. This system of thermal control has been a mystery for many years and the subject of study by biologists. The problem is that for their huge weight (up to 12 tons in adulthood), elephants have a relatively small body surface and thick skin to cool themselves in the heat by air convection. In addition, elephants lack sweat glands, which play a primary role in cooling some mammals in hot weather. Therefore, there are concerns that the metabolic internal mechanism for maintaining temperature may not be able to cope with the load. Meanwhile, African elephants live in one third of the African continent, and the temperature in some places in Namibia and Mali can reach 50 ° C in the daytime.

For a long time it was believed that leading role elephant's large ears play a role in regulating the body temperature of an elephant. The skin on the ears of an elephant is very thin, with a fine network of blood vessels. On hot days, elephants flap their ears, creating a gentle breeze that cools the superficial blood vessels, and then the already cooled blood circulates through the body. The differences in ear size between African and Asian elephants can be explained, in part, by their geographic location. Africans live near the equator, where it is very hot, that's why they have such big ears. Asians live much further north and their ears are much smaller. An important role in cooling the elephant in the heat is also played by the trunk, with which the elephants are poured with water.

However, in 2010, a study by scientists from the universities of Vienna was published in the Journal of Thermal Biology, which provides an alternative explanation for the thermoregulation of elephants. Scientists have studied the change in temperature of six African elephants from the Vienna Zoo using an infrared camera. Scientists have found up to fifteen "hot windows" on the surface of the elephants' skin, which are scattered throughout the body. These zones expand as the ambient temperature increases.

It turned out that elephants can regulate blood flow to the cooling zones, thereby lowering the temperature of the blood. In fact, scientists have destroyed the myth of the “thick-skinned” elephant by discovering a very sensitive and well-controlled temperature regulation mechanism under the skin. The scientists also found that the control of blood flow to the elephant's ears occurs independently of the flow to other areas. The ears certainly play a primary role in the elephant's thermoregulation, but they are not the only thermoregulatory mechanism.

I would like to tell a little more about elephants in this post. These are highly developed animals. Any group of wild elephants is a single and complex organism. Baby elephants grow up in a large matriarchal family, where loving females take care of them, first of all - own mother, as well as numerous sisters, aunts, grandmothers and just friends. The connections within the group are strong and maintained throughout the life of the elephant - about seven decades. Males live next to their mother up to 14 years, and females - all their lives. If a cub is injured or threatened, the other elephants will comfort and protect it.

Such cohesion is ensured by a complex system of communications. Elephants use an impressive array of vocal cues to communicate in short, from muffled grunts to high-pitched screams and roars, and visual cues, expressing a variety of emotions through their trunk, ears, head, and tail. They are also able to communicate at a large distance - over one and a half kilometers - in order to be heard by their relatives, elephants emit powerful low-frequency growling sounds.

The high intellectual abilities of elephants are confirmed by scientists. Magnetic resonance imaging of the elephant brain shows an unusually large size of the hippocampus, a region of the mammalian brain associated with memory processes and an important part of the limbic system, which is involved in the generation of emotions. In addition, an increased number of spindle-shaped neurons was found in the elephant's brain. It is assumed that in humans they are associated with such abilities as self-awareness, empathy and awareness of oneself in society. It also turned out that elephants can pass a test for recognizing themselves in a mirror - until recently it was believed that only people were capable of this, some higher primates and dolphins.