Operation Dumbo Plop : snopes. Claim: A new Sea. World attraction involves drowning a live elephant. Every so often, a specific article from that site will gain an atypical amount of traction and be mistaken for real news. Prior to the flood of hoax news outlets, a now- popular blog was created specifically to highlight instances in which social media users failed to recognize articles from The Onion as satire rather than real news. While the drowning article appeared to be one of those instances (for unclear reasons), the premise was purely spoofing in nature. Elephant - Wikipedia. Elephants are large mammals of the family Elephantidae and the order Proboscidea. Two species are traditionally recognised, the African elephant (Loxodonta africana) and the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), although some evidence suggests that African bush elephants and African forest elephants are separate species (L. Elephants are scattered throughout sub- Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Elephantidae is the only surviving family of the order Proboscidea; other, now extinct, members of the order include deinotheres, gomphotheres, mammoths, and mastodons. Male African elephants are the largest extantterrestrial animals and can reach a height of 4 m (1. All elephants have several distinctive features, the most notable of which is a long trunk or proboscis, used for many purposes, particularly breathing, lifting water and grasping objects. Their incisors grow into tusks, which can serve as weapons and as tools for moving objects and digging. Elephants' large ear flaps help to control their body temperature. Their pillar- like legs can carry their great weight. African elephants have larger ears and concave backs while Asian elephants have smaller ears and convex or level backs. Elephants are herbivorous and can be found in different habitats including savannahs, forests, deserts and marshes. They prefer to stay near water. They are considered to be keystone species due to their impact on their environments. Other animals tend to keep their distance from elephants, while predators such as lions, tigers, hyenas, and wild dogs usually target only young elephants (or . The groups are led by an individual known as the matriarch, often the oldest cow. Elephants have a fission. Adult bulls mostly interact with family groups when looking for a mate and enter a state of increased testosterone and aggression known as musth, which helps them gain dominance and reproductive success. Elephants Gorillas Sea Turtles Polar Bears Rhinos Whales View speciesh Animal Trivia Games Symbolically Adopt an Animal. As a result, the level of human-elephant conflict rises as elephants are forced to try access resources. Illegal Wildlife Trade Fauna. African elephants are the largest land animals on Earth. They are slightly larger than their Asian cousins and can be identified by their larger ears that look somewhat like the continent of Africa. Explore the eye-opening facts about elephants, the Earth's largest land animal. PARKS KIDS SHOP ANIMALS CARE LANGUAGE VACATIONS SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment. Calves are the centre of attention in their family groups and rely on their mothers for as long as three years. Elephants can live up to 7. They communicate by touch, sight, smell and sound; elephants use infrasound, and seismic communication over long distances. Elephant intelligence has been compared with that of primates and cetaceans. They appear to have self- awareness and show empathy for dying or dead individuals of their kind. African elephants are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), while the Asian elephant is classed as endangered. One of the biggest threats to elephant populations is the ivory trade, as the animals are poached for their ivory tusks. Other threats to wild elephants include habitat destruction and conflicts with local people. Elephants are used as working animals in Asia. In the past they were used in war; today, they are often controversially put on display in zoos, or exploited for entertainment in circuses. Elephants are highly recognisable and have been featured in art, folklore, religion, literature and popular culture. Etymology. The word . Their closest extant relatives are the sirenians (dugongs and manatees) and the hyraxes, with which they share the clade. Paenungulata within the superorder Afrotheria. African elephants have larger ears, a concave back, more wrinkled skin, a sloping abdomen and two finger- like extensions at the tip of the trunk. Asian elephants have smaller ears, a convex or level back, smoother skin, a horizontal abdomen that occasionally sags in the middle and one extension at the tip of the trunk. The looped ridges on the molars are narrower in the Asian elephant while those of the African are more diamond- shaped. The Asian elephant also has dorsal bumps on its head and some patches of depigmentation on its skin. In 1. 79. 8, Georges Cuvier classified the Indian elephant under the binomial Elephas indicus. Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck described the Sumatran elephant in 1. Elephas sumatranus. English zoologist Frederick Nutter Chasen classified all three as subspecies of the Asian elephant in 1. The Sri Lankan elephant (Elephas maximus maximus) inhabits Sri Lanka, the Indian elephant (E. It has larger ears, a longer tail, and straighter tusks than the typical elephant. Sri Lankan zoologist Paules Edward Pieris Deraniyagala described it in 1. Elephas maximus borneensis, taking as his type an illustration in National Geographic. Results of a 2. 00. Cuvier spelled it Loxodonte and an anonymous author romanised the spelling to Loxodonta; the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature recognises this as the proper authority. The earliest proboscids, the African Eritherium and Phosphatherium of the late Paleocene, heralded the first radiation. These animals were relatively small and aquatic. Later on, genera such as Phiomia and Palaeomastodon arose; the latter likely inhabited forests and open woodlands. Proboscidean diversity declined during the Oligocene. The former were related to Barytherium, lived in Africa and Eurasia. Members of this group included Gomphotherium and Platybelodon. Loxodonta branched off earliest, around the Miocene and Pliocene boundary, while Mammuthus and Elephas diverged later during the early Pliocene. Loxodonta remained in Africa, while Mammuthus and Elephas spread to Eurasia, and the former reached North America. At the same time, the stegodontids, another proboscidean group descended from gomphotheres, spread throughout Asia, including the Indian subcontinent, China, southeast Asia and Japan. Mammutids continued to evolve into new species, such as the American mastodon. Loxodonta atlantica became the most common species in northern and southern Africa but was replaced by Elephas iolensis later in the Pleistocene. Only when Elephas disappeared from Africa did Loxodonta become dominant once again, this time in the form of the modern species. Elephas diversified into new species in Asia, such as E. Early proboscideans developed longer mandibles and smaller craniums, while more advanced ones developed shorter mandibles, which shifted the head's centre of gravity. The skull grew larger, especially the cranium, while the neck shortened to provide better support for the skull. The increase in size led to the development and elongation of the mobile trunk to provide reach. The number of premolars, incisors and canines decreased. Only in the last million year or so did they return to a diet mainly consisting of C3 trees and shrubs. Some proboscideans developed tusks from their lower incisors. Sea elephants, or elephant seals, exist in two species, the northern elephant seal and the southern elephant seal. The southern elephant seal is the largest type of seal on Earth. Hunting almost caused the extinction of the seals in the late 19th century. Since then, however, numbers have recovered. Elephant Family is a small but hugely ambitious charity. Our vision is a world in which the Asian elephant is no longer an endangered species. A world in which these The Sea Elephants do share some traits with Sea Lions and Seals, such as hauling out of the water to rest and for protection from their main predators, Great White Sharks and Orca Whales. But while they may some behaviors in common, their personalities are far. Learn about the size, diet, population, range, behavior and other fascinating facts about elephants. Habitat loss is one of the key threats facing elephants. Many climate change projections indicate that key portions of elephants’ habitat will become significantly.
Some DNA studies suggest Mammuthus is more closely related to the former. This occurred primarily during the Pleistocene, when some elephant populations became isolated by fluctuating sea levels, although dwarf elephants did exist earlier in the Pliocene. These elephants likely grew smaller on islands due to a lack of large or viable predator populations and limited resources. By contrast, small mammals such as rodents develop gigantism in these conditions. Dwarf proboscideans are known to have lived in Indonesia, the Channel Islands of California, and several islands of the Mediterranean. Elephas falconeri of Malta and Sicily was only 1 m (3 ft), and had probably evolved from the straight- tusked elephant. Other descendants of the straight- tusked elephant existed in Cyprus. Dwarf elephants of uncertain descent lived in Crete, Cyclades and Dodecanese, while dwarf mammoths are known to have lived in Sardinia. This species reached a height of 1. A population of small woolly mammoths survived on Wrangel Island, now 1. Siberian coast, as recently as 4,0. African elephants stand 3. African elephants have 2. Asian elephants have 1. The back of the skull is flattened and spread out, creating arches that protect the brain in every direction. These cavities give the inside of the skull a honeycomb- like appearance. The cranium is particularly large and provides enough room for the attachment of muscles to support the entire head. The lower jaw is solid and heavy. A durable nictitating membrane protects the eye globe. The animal's field of vision is compromised by the location and limited mobility of the eyes. Like all mammals, an elephant can raise or lower its temperature a few degrees from the average in response to extreme environmental conditions. The ear flaps, or pinnae, contain numerous blood vessels called capillaries. Warm blood flows into the capillaries, helping to release excess body heat into the environment. This occurs when the pinnae are still, and the animal can enhance the effect by flapping them. Larger ear surfaces contain more capillaries, and more heat can be released. Of all the elephants, African bush elephants live in the hottest climates, and have the largest ear flaps. It contains up to 1. These paired muscles consist of two major types: superficial (surface) and internal. The former are divided into dorsals, ventrals and laterals, while the latter are divided into transverse and radiating muscles. The muscles of the trunk connect to a bony opening in the skull. The nasal septum is composed of tiny muscle units that stretch horizontally between the nostrils. Cartilage divides the nostrils at the base. The muscles work both with and against each other. A unique proboscis nerve . The Asian elephant has only one, and relies more on wrapping around a food item and squeezing it into its mouth. One elephant has been observed to graze by kneeling on its front legs, raising on its hind legs and taking in grass with its lips. Unlike most mammals, which grow baby teeth and then replace them with a single permanent set of adult teeth, elephants are polyphyodonts that have cycles of tooth rotation throughout their lives. The chewing teeth are replaced six times in a typical elephant's lifetime. Teeth are not replaced by new ones emerging from the jaws vertically as in most mammals. Instead, new teeth grow in at the back of the mouth and move forward to push out the old ones. The first chewing tooth on each side of the jaw falls out when the elephant is two to three years old.
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