African Elephant
[ Loxodonta africana ]
Quick Facts
| BODY LENGTH: |
18 to 24 feet |
| TAIL LENGTH: |
3 to 5 feet
|
| HEIGHT: |
male: 10 to 13 feet; female: 7 to 11 feet (at shoulder) |
| WEIGHT: |
male: 10,000 to 13,200 pounds; female: 6,000 to 8,000 pounds |
| WILD DIET: |
varies seasonally. In the wet season they eat mostly grasses and leaves from trees and shrubs. In the dry season they eat twigs, branches, and bark. They eat fruit and flowers when available. |
| ZOO DIET: |
grass, hay, vitamin-fortified alfalfa-based products, apples, bananas, onions, carrots, sweet potatoes, and bread |
| DISTRIBUTION: |
Africa south of the Sahara Desert |
| HABITAT: |
savannah grasslands and forests |
Largest Land Mammal in a Shrinking Land
Just Plain Big
No land mammal is larger than the African elephant. Not the hippopotamus. Not the rhinoceros. Not the Asian elephant, which is quite a bit smaller, on average. Adult male African elephants weigh over 12,000 pounds, more than four Honda Civics! The largest elephant known weighed more than 22,000 pounds!
Headgear
On an African elephant, the ears are so big they drape over the front shoulders. Filled with huge blood vessels just under the surface of the skin, the ears are part of an elephant’s cooling system. By flapping its ears, an elephant creates air currents that cool the blood in the ears; that blood then circulates to the rest of the body.
The trunk is an extension of the upper lip and nose, and is a multi-purpose wonder. Smelling, feeding, touching, lifting--it’s all within reach of the sensitive and flexible trunk. A pair of tusks (actually elongated upper teeth) are on either side of the trunk. Tusks grow throughout an elephant’s life, and in some old males they can be more than seven feet long. Tusks are good for digging up roots, prying bark off of trees, and for making a “point” during social interactions.
Heard About Herds?
African elephants live in herds led by the oldest and largest females, called matriarchs. A herd is made up of closely related females and their immature offspring. While females (cows) stay in their birth herd their entire life, males leave their mother’s herd when they are about 10 years old. The adult males (bulls) stay in bachelor herds or live alone.
Sounds of Silence
Elephant herds are very tight-knit and have sophisticated methods of communication. One way is through low frequency sound, so low that it is beyond the hearing of people. These low sounds, called infrasounds, actually vibrate the air--so people can sometimes feel them instead of hear them. Elephants use these deep tones to communicate with other elephants. Infrasounds travel great distances, so elephants can communicate across many miles.
Ivory and Habitat: Two Big Problems
The poaching of elephants for their ivory tusks has had a huge effect on the social structure of elephants and their overall population. The largest males with the largest tusks are the first targets of poachers. The largest females, the matriarchs, are next. Without the leadership of the matriarchs, the elephant social system breaks down, making it much more difficult to raise calves for the next generation.
Because of their big bodies and big appetites, elephants are hard on the environment. During the latter part of the last century, elephants were increasingly forced into smaller and smaller areas because of habitat destruction. Although some of these areas were protected game reserves, in some areas the elephants have depleted their food supply and experienced a population decline.
Better ways of managing these incredible animals must be developed if they are to survive in a shrinking land.
African Elephants at Brookfield Zoo
Brookfield Zoo’s elephants reside at Pachyderm House. Brookfield Zoo is part of the African Elephant Species Survival Plan, a cooperative program between zoos created to ensure there are healthy zoo populations of endangered animals.