An elephant greeting

A Page of Information on Elephants

The elephant is probably one of the world's best-known animals; depictions of elephants in Western literature date back at least to Matthew Paris' Chronica Majora, a 13th century chronicle, and elephants have been kept in zoos and menageries for several hundred years.

There are two distinct species of elephant:

The African elephant
This species is physically larger; both males and females have tusks which can grow to extreme length. Males are larger than females and can grow to 7 tonnes mass. The image above depicts a male and a female African elephant.

The Indian elephant
Smaller than the African elephant, with only males possessing tusks. Although both species are capable of domestication, it is only the Indian elephant which is commonly trained, often for forestry work.

Elephants are normally considered to be among the most intelligent mammals, probably ranking behind dolphins and the higher primates. Groups of elephants have highly-established social frameworks and sophisticated communication calls. Young animals are cared for within an extended family structure, and groups of animals will co-operate in searching out food and water when these are scarce.

The elephant's tusks consist of ivory, a material which like chitin or cellulose is organic but not "alive" per se. The tusks are used to retrieve food, to dig for water, and occasionally, to fight. Elephants, with no natural predators, are nevertheless hunted by poachers who sell off ivory to fuel the trade in stupid trinkets for those pathetic people who like that sort of thing. Frequently elephants are not killed outright by poachers, but merely disabled. Tusks are severed at the root and the animal left to die, often in extreme pain. The trade in ivory is now banned by CITES except under a few special circumstances but this unfortunately has only acted to drive it underground.

Take a look at the following elephant-related site...

http://elephant.elehost.com/
A site collecting information and links to other elephant sites on the web.

The above elephant text was extracted from The Elephant Friendly Home Page, copyright © 1997 Chris Lightfoot