Between 19, hunting and poaching put the African elephant at risk of extinction, reducing its population by another half. By 1970, their numbers were down to 1.3 million. By the early 20th century, their numbers had dropped to 10 million. Before the Europeans began colonizing Africa, there may have been as many as 26 million elephants. Poaching for the illegal ivory trade is the biggest threat to African elephants’ survival. At birth, elephants already weigh some 200 pounds and stand about three feet tall.
Cows usually give birth to one calf every two to four years. Elephants have a longer pregnancy than any other mammal- almost 22 months. Having a baby elephant is a serious commitment. Adult males, called bulls, tend to roam on their own, sometimes forming smaller, more loosely associated all-male groups. She presides over a multi-generational herd that includes other females, called cows, and their young. The matriarch is usually the biggest and oldest. HerdsĮlephants are matriarchal, meaning they live in female-led groups. A number of conservation programs work with farmers to help them protect their crops and provide compensation when an elephant does raid them. An elephant can destroy an entire season of crops in a single night. The small, nomadic herd of Mali elephants migrates in a circular route through the desert in search of water.īecause elephants eat so much, they’re increasingly coming into contact with humans. The continent’s northernmost elephants are found in Mali’s Sahel Desert. These hungry animals do not sleep much, roaming great distances while foraging for the large quantities of food that they require to sustain their massive bodies.Īfrican elephants range throughout the savannas of sub-Saharan Africa and the rainforests of Central and West Africa. An adult elephant can consume up to 300 pounds of food in a single day. DietĮlephants eat roots, grasses, fruit, and bark. Males, whose tusks tend to be larger than females', also use their tusks to battle one another. They use these tusks to dig for food and water and strip bark from trees. Savanna elephants have curving tusks, while the tusks of forest elephants are straight. (Asian elephants have just one.)īoth male and female African elephants have tusks, which are continuously growing teeth. African elephants have two fingerlike features on the end of their trunk that they can use to grab small items. The trunk alone contains about 40,000 muscles.
#BABY ELEPHANT PLAIN CLIP ART SKIN#
Afterwards, they often spray their skin with a protective coating of dust.Īn elephant's trunk is actually a long nose used for smelling, breathing, trumpeting, drinking, and also for grabbing things-especially a potential meal. Elephants are fond of water and enjoy showering by sucking water into their trunks and spraying it all over themselves. Trunks and tusksĮlephant ears radiate heat to help keep these large animals cool, but sometimes the African heat is too much. In the forest, their feasting on trees and shrubs creates pathways for smaller animals to move through, and in the savanna, they uproot trees and eat saplings, which helps keep the landscape open for zebras and other plains animals to thrive.
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Their dung is full of seeds, helping plants spread across the environment-and it makes pretty good habitat for dung beetles too. During the dry season, they use their tusks to dig up dry riverbeds and create watering holes many animals can drink from. Also known as “ecosystem engineers,” elephants shape their habitat in many ways. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature lists savanna elephants as endangered and forest elephants as critically endangered.Īfrican elephants are keystone species, meaning they play a critical role in their ecosystem. Savanna elephants are larger animals that roam the plains of sub-Saharan Africa, while forest elephants are smaller animals that live in the forests of Central and West Africa. (Asian elephants have smaller, rounded ears.)Īlthough they were long grouped together as one species, scientists have determined that there are actually two species of African elephants-and that both are at risk of extinction. They are slightly larger than their Asian cousins and can be identified by their larger ears that look somewhat like the continent of Africa. African elephants are the largest land animals on Earth.
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