According to historical records, elephants have long been human friends and can offer help to humans. Elephants are clever enough to carve a field and bury their dead in leaves and branches. Elephants live for a long time, generally living to about 70 years.
They become sexually mature between the ages of 10 and 15 and have a pregnancy period of up to 22 months. The elephant is extremely widespread. About 40 million years ago, it was found on every continent except Oceania and Antarctica, but now there are mainly two groups of elephants: Asian and African.
Asian elephants stand 2 to 4 meters tall at the shoulder and weigh 3 to 5 tons. African elephants stand 3 to 4 meters tall at the shoulder and weigh 5.5 to 8 tons. The average African forest elephant is no more than 2.7 meters tall at the shoulder and weighs 3.5 tons.
The elephant has a large head, ears as big as a fan, and limbs as thick as columns to support its huge body. The knee joint can not be freely flexion and extended, and the nose length is almost equal to the body length, in a cylindric shape, stretching and bending freely.
The trunk is made entirely of muscle, and the opening of the nostrils is at the end. The tip of the nose has a finger-like protrusion, which can pick up objects. The trunk is very flexible and can pick up objects weighing up to a ton, from food as small as peanuts.
Several species of elephants in South Central Asia or Africa have thick, hairless skin. It has a long, flexible snout that can be curled, and the upper two incisors develop long, curved tusks. African elephants have large fan-shaped ears.
Elephants are herbivores, eating plants such as leaves, branches, fruits, bark, grass, and roots. Because of their large size and strong digestion, they need a lot of food every day.
Elephants can consume 150 kilograms of food a day, or 1 to 2 percent of their body weight. Elephants are long feeders, eating about 16 hours a day, mainly in the morning, afternoon, and evening.
Elephants rely heavily on water and need baths to cool down in addition to drinking. Elephants drink about 150 liters of water a day. Elephants may travel hundreds or even thousands of meters in search of food, water, and minerals. During the dry season, when water is scarce, they may appear in less desirable or even degraded habitats.
Elephants weigh about 2.7 to 5.5 tons. Most African elephants weigh between 2.7 and 5.5 tons, with 7.3 tons being the largest individual found.
Elephants have no natural enemies. But the number of elephants has been decreasing in recent years. There are several main reasons:
1. Ivory poaching is a major factor in the death and decline of individual elephants.
Asian elephants are hunted for their tusks, bodies, skin, and other products, and are sometimes poached life for forestry or ritual purposes. Poaching for ivory, a major factor in the death and decline of individual African elephants, has increased significantly since 2008 and peaked in 2011.
2. Human-induced land use changes have reduced elephant habitat. Land use change is the result of continuous population growth, agriculture, and infrastructure construction, and in turn, economic and technological progress promotes land use change.
Asian and African elephants are found in countries with rapidly increasing human populations and associated agricultural, industrial, and infrastructure developments that are reducing elephant habitats.
3. In areas where humans and elephants coexist, human-elephant interactions are becoming more frequent, leading to intensified human-elephant conflicts and further threatening the survival of elephants.
Human-elephant conflicts kill more than 600 people and 450 Asian elephants each year, 80-85% of them in India and Sri Lanka.
