Elephants - Pictures - Special Adaptations
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Picture source:
Animal Diversity Web © 1995-2004
The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors
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The most remarkable feature of Elephants is their muscular trunk that serves as a nose, a hand, an extra foot, a tool for gathering food and water, dusting, signaling and many other functions. Trunks allow Elephants reach the height of 23 feet. They are able to perform both delicate movements, such as picking berries and caressing each other and powerful movements, such as tearing down trees or fighting. African species has two finger-like structures on the tip; Asian species has only one such structure.
Another hallmark of Elephants is their tusks, which developed from elongated incisors. The largest tusk recorded was 138 inches long and 214 pounds in weight. About one-third of tusks is hidden inside the skull of these animals. Nowadays the tusks of Elephants are not very large, as hunters and poaches have killed the largest animals and they didn't leave the offspring. The tusks of modern Elephants reach only 100 pounds in weight. Both sexes in African species have tusks, but only male Asiatic Elephants have them. Tucks grow for most of the animal's life, so they can be indicators of age. Elephants may be either right- or left-tusked using one tuck more often than the other.
The ears of Elephants control body temperature. These animals flap the ears in hot days and make the blood circulate in the veins, which makes it cooler. Ears also display various feelings and elephants use them as signals in emergency. The soles of Elephants' feet are covered with thick pads that sustain great weight and prevent sounds. Due to such padding of feet, Elephants are able to move silently.
Elephants - Pictures - General Information Links
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Picture source:
African Adventure Discovery Tours © 2002
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About Elephants - All about Elephants on the Elephant Information Repository!
African Wildlife Foundation - African and Asian Elephants are the only survivors of prehistoric large animals.
Animal Bytes: Elephant - Get accurate information in an easy-to-read style about Elephants from the San Diego Zoo's Animal Bytes.
Asian Elephant - Short description and photographs from the San Antonio Zoo.
BBC - Nature Wildfacts - Asian Elephant - Facts, images and video.
EleAid - Promotes charitable conservation projects that help protect the endangered Asian Elephants. Includes information about projects, photos, and links.
Elephant - IWMC World Conservation Trust pages on sustainable exploitation of wild Elephants.
Elephant -- Kids' Planet -- Defenders of Wildlife - Status and general information.
Elephants - Enlarge upon your students' interest in Elephants with a thematic unit.
Asian Elephant - Elephant Resources: contact a conservation biologist.
Elephant Conservation - Information on illegal trading, conservation and current projects.
Elephant Corner - Information about experiments on vision, senses, problem solving, cognition, and consciousness in Elephants, includes film script of experiments and observations in Myanmar and the Detroit Zoo, slide shows, and sounds.
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Picture source:
Animal Diversity Web © 1995-2004
The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors
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Elephant Country - Personal site with information about African and Asian Elephants.
Elephant Information Repository: Elephant Resources - A database of links to news about Elephants, literature, and multimedia within the site.
Elephant Management and Owners Association - Promotes, monitors and advises on all aspects of Elephant management, conservation and welfare.
Elephant Nature Park - Northern Thailand's conservation project.
Elephant News - News and articles about captive and wild Elephants.
Elephant Population in Botswana - A case against the complete ban of ivory trade.
Elephanteria - Offers visitor information and reasons for celebrating Elephant Appreciation Day. An entire section devoted to topics of interest to kids, with galleries of photos and humor.
Elephants in Captivity - Elephants in captivity. Latest news from CAPS.
Elephants in Zoo and Circus - Elephant encyclopedia written by an Elephant keeper. In English and German.
Elephants of Cameroon - Click and get a broad overview of endangered African Elephants.
Elephants! - An Online Exhibit - Learn all about Elephants and their prehistoric relatives in this online exhibit.
European Elephant Keeper and Managers Association - Forum for keepers, information about events and global network.
Elephants - Pictures - Other Elephants sites
Elephants Photos - Elephants belong to the group of Proboscidea. About 50 million years ago there were as many as 350 various species that belonged to this class. Mammoths and mastodons are the most familiar nowadays. They lived on all continents except Australia and Antarctica. Initially they evolved in Africa during the Paleogene, but later, conceivably during the Miocene, their distribution spread to other continents.
First ancient predecessors of the modern elephant lived in the Eocene period about 50 million years ago. They are called Moeritherium. They were much smaller in size and they had no trunk. Mammoths, their descendants, developed thicker skin, trunk, and long tusks. They were larger in size due to aggravating climatic conditions.
