Elephants are the largest land mammals on our planet.
The African elephant and the Asian elephant are the two species currently recognized, each with its own subspecies, some of which are extinct.
Direct descendants of mammoths and mastodons, elephants have been able to adapt to a wide variety of environments such as high mountains, savannas, deserts, valleys, and tropical forests.
The most distinctive feature of elephants is their elongated trunk, a boneless muscle that they use to collect food, make sounds, and identify smells and tastes.
Elephant characteristics
About the tusks, these structures are part of their bones, and it is not strange to see that the specimens have one more elongated tusk than the other.
This is because similar to what happens with humans who can be right or left-handed, animals use one tusk more often than the other. Despite their considerable size, elephants can reach speeds over 40 km / h.
The height of these animals oscillates over four meters, and as for their ears, they can self-regulate the temperature of the animal, since they have an abundant network of blood vessels.
To communicate with their companions from miles away, elephants are capable of emitting low-frequency sounds that travel not only through the air, but also on the ground, and are perceived through their enormous legs.
On the other hand, elephants have wrinkled skin with little presence of hair, and as for the elephant's trunk, it is made up of about 10,000 muscles that allow it to act as an arm, nose, and hand.
How much an elephant weighs
Elephants are heavy animals from the first moment they are born, With its 22 months of gestation, the calf at the time they are born will weigh nothing more and nothing less than approximately 98 kilos, as the weeks go by, this figure will be doubled and tripled thanks to the feeding that It supplies the mother and also the one they are going to take from their environment.
When the elephant reaches adulthood it can easily weigh 5 tons, although most adults and older can touch almost 7 tons.
Origin and evolution
Elephants, both African and Asian, share the same order, Proboscidea, which although in the past comprised 350 species, today, they only have as members the Elephantidae family.
As a curiosity, we can say that the word elephant comes from the Greco-Latin culture, being "elephas" a term with which a beast or horned deer of the past was called.
On the other hand, the ending "ele" and "fante" mean "great bow", a name that refers to the enormous tusks of these wonderful animals.
As we mentioned at the beginning, the mammoth is the closest relative of current elephants, which, throughout the evolution of the elephant, lost the abundant layer of hair that surrounded mammoths.
A curious fact is that, although we are used to thinking of elephants as very large animals, there is archaeological evidence that reveals animals of this species with a size similar to that of pigs during the prehistoric period.
Similarly, it is amazing to learn that elephants are related to manatees, Today's elephants differ greatly from the first specimens, During the temperature changes that occurred, these animals replaced their fur with hard skin that allowed them to live in arid and hot regions.
At the same time, their trunks also underwent modifications, having to increase their abilities to interact with the environment and survive.
During this entire period, 50 to 60 million years ago, elephants acquired a surprising level of adaptability.
However, the evolutionary process did not keep up with external factors, and for this reason, today there are many extinct species.
Where elephants live
Elephants are capable of adapting to a wide variety of habitats and conditions. They can almost always be seen in the African grasslands, although it is not unusual to see them also in savannas, forests, and areas with a nearby water source.
At the same time, elephants also like to roll in the mud or take a much-needed “dust shower” to mitigate the effects of sunlight and insect bites.
The vast majority of African specimens that exist today are found in protected parks, although many of them prefer to emigrate throughout the year, especially when the destruction of their habitat at the hands of man is imminent.
As for the Asian elephant, these animals have populations in some Asian tropical forests of China and India.
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