text x_quick_Title2=Class: Mammalia~Order: Proboscidea~Family: Elephantidae
text x_quick=Where In the World~` The African elephant is found in limited numbers from southern Mauritania, Mali, Chad, and the Sudan to northern South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia. The total estimated population is between 250,000 and 300,000.~` Historically, elephants were found in much greater numbers from the Mediterranean Sea to the Cape of Good Hope, excluding only parts of the Sahara and other desert regions.~Take a Look!~` African elephants are the largest living terrestrial mammal.~` Males are larger than females and generally weigh between 4,500 and almost 14,000 pounds.~` Their weight can be as high as 16,500 pounds!~` The elephants that roam through the plains are larger than the ones that live in forests. "Bush" elephants can stand 13 feet at the shoulder, while forest elephants can be as short as six feet.~` The overall head and body length can be from 19 to almost 25 feet.~` African elephants have much larger ears that Asian elephants. Their loosely fitting skin is dull, brownish grey and covered sparsely with bristly black hair.~` Both males and females grow tusks, long teeth from their upper jaw. The largest known tusk was 11 1/2 feet long and weighed 235 pounds.~All in the Family~` The only relative of the African elephant is the Asian elephant. ~~Just the Facts~` Elephants are very social and generally stay in a herd. The herd is lead by a dominant female who uses her experience to guide her "family" to water and food even in times of drought.~` The dominant female holds her rank until she dies - then her oldest daughter becomes the leader.~` Male elephants sometimes band together to form bachelor herds. Single males are common, while females are almost always part of a herd.~` Like many animals in hot weather, elephants generally sleep through the hottest part of the day. They can sleep lying down. When they stand up to sleep, they may lean on a tree or each other.~` Elephants eat so much that they have to look for food almost continuously. When there is plenty to eat, they move slowly. When there is little or no food in the area, they migrate to a new place fairly quickly. The average pace is about seven miles a day.~` Elephants are vegetarians - they eat grasses, leaves, bark, twigs, herbs, shrubs, roots, and fruit. They eat 300 to 650 pounds of food a day, and drink 40 gallons of water.~` Elephants breed from November through April - generally, this ensures that the newborn calf will have the benefits of the rainy season - cool weather and abundant cover.~` The female is pregnant for 17 to 25 months - the average length of time is 22 months. Her calf weighs 200 to 250 pounds at birth, and can travel with the herd after two or three days.~` African elephants can live to be 70 years old.
;Habitat
text x_hab= Once, elephants roamed across most of the African continent, from the Mediterranean coast at the north all the way down to the Cape of Good Hope at the far southern tip, and from the Atlantic shores on the west to the Indian ocean on the east, skipping only the Sahara and other deserts. Today, the habitat the elephants need is limited and their range is much smaller. There aren't as many places that can provide what the elephants need most - space. Consider a herd of 100 elephants. If we say that each member eats an average of 300 pounds of food a day and drinks 40 gallons of water, that herd has to be able to find 30,000 pounds of grass and other vegetation and 4,000 gallons of water. If they were guests at your house, you'd have to mow a large meadow and fill a small swimming pool every single day. So the herd has to divide its time between eating and walking to a new place to find more to eat. If the herd is bigger, or the elephants eat and drink more, the task of finding enough food is even harder. It's not that elephants are picky - they can survive in many different habitats. Elephants live in deep forests, open savannahs, wet marshes, thornbush habitats, and semi-desert scrub from sea level to 15,000 feet up a mountain. They need a supply of fresh water, plenty of vegetation, and shade. When those things are in great abundance, the elephants are content to stay in one area, but when there is a shortage (and with an elephant's appetite, there's often a shortage), the herd will migrate up to several hundred miles.
;Food
text x_eat= Imagine that you're an elephant - that means you're bigger than anything else. But because you're so big, your mouth is pretty far away from your favourite foods - grasses from the ground, and leaves, bark, and twigs from the trees. How are you going to eat? Luckily, you have a long, flexible trunk that you can use as an arm. So you reach down to the grasses (or up to the trees) with your trunk. You twist around a tasty mouthful, rip it out, and put it in your mouth. Now you're a little thirsty, so you stroll over to a pool of water. You could wade in until the water was up to your mouth (and on a hot afternoon in Africa, that would feel pretty good), but the water isn't deep enough. Now what? The amazing trunk to the rescue - again! This time it's not an arm, it's a straw. You can suck in water right through it. And, since it's hot, you can also fill up your trunk and spray your own back! The trunk is very important to an elephant, since an adult needs 300 to 650 pounds of vegetation a day, and 40 gallons of water.
;Habits and Characteristics
text x_life= Elephants believe that "mother knows best." Their society is matriarchal, which means the leaders are always female. Each herd relies on their dominant female to remember where there's enough food and water for everyone - even in the worst times. When the whole countryside is dry from drought, a good leader will even know where there is water below the ground. When that happens, the elephants use their enormous feet and their long tusks. They dig through the hard soil until they reach the water that the "old mother" remembered. And when they move on in search of more food, they leave a watering hole behind that sustains all the other animals in the area until the rains come again. How does the old mother know where the water is - is it magic? No - it's intelligence and a long memory. You may have heard someone say, "An elephant never forgets," and that may be close to true. The leader can look back across her life to when she was young, following another leader across the plains. When she brings her herd to a spot, she may remember that 40, 50, or even 60 years ago there was a pond here. Perhaps the water level receded during the drought, but she knows water was there once, and it can be found again. So she tells her followers to dig. It's her knowledge, memory, and experience that help the entire herd survive. In this female-dominated society, newborns are adored by all. The calves in the herd are indulged and spoiled by every member. They always move at a pace the calves can keep up with, even when they're extra-hungry or thirsty, and they protect their calves against all danger. Newborn elephants are very playful. They like to tease their elders, and butt their little heads against the enormous legs of their aunts, and no one really minds. When the herd takes a nap in the middle of the day, a calf's older sister will be assigned to "babysit" - she moves the baby a bit away from the herd and keeps it distracted while the aunts and grandmothers snooze in the sunshine. If the calf is a female, she will be welcome to stay with the herd for the rest of her life. Young males will be driven out of the herd once they've learned to survive on their own. Many males stay solitary and wander alone (often they stay near their herd, following it but staying out of sight.) More commonly, males will band together to form their own bachelor herd. The female herds with their calves can number from 10 to 1,000, while the bachelor herds are rarely bigger than 150 members. Elephants are physically able to mate in their early teens, but no one takes them seriously until they're in their early twent
