Habitat and Distribution
- Distribution African elephants have a sub-Saharan distribution, with forest elephants primarily inhabiting western and central regions of Africa and savanna elephants inhabiting the eastern and southern regions. ...
- Habitat African elephants inhabit a diverse array of habitats including tropical forests, savannas, grasslands, and woodlands. ...
- Migration ...
- Population ...
Full Answer
Do Elephants live in Africa?
Where Do African Elephants Live in Africa? African bush elephants are great travelers. They are thought to migrate all throughout the Africa. They are found in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, and Tanzania. They will make habitats in dense forests, grasslands, and dense forests of Africa. African forest elephants likely live in the dense forests of Central Africa such as Gabon.
What are facts about African savannah elephants?
Facts
- EN Status Endangered
- Scientific Name Loxodonta africana africana
- Height 10-13 feet
- Weight 4-7 tons
- Habitats All of sub-Saharan Africa except for Central Africa’s dense tropical forest
What is the average size of an African elephant?
The typical African Elephant has an overall height of 8’3”-13’ (2.5-4 m) and body length of 10’-16’6” (3-5 m). An average African Elephant weighs between 5,500-15,400 lb (2,500-7,000 kg) and has a typical lifespan of 70 years. What do elephants eat?
Are African savanna elephants endangered?
The African savanna elephant ( loxodonta africana) is now listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. The IUCN Red List now includes 134,425 species of which 37,480 are threatened with extinction. “Africa’s elephants play key roles in ecosystems, economies and in our collective imagination all over the world.
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What are African elephants habitats?
African elephants inhabit a diverse array of habitats including tropical forests, savannas, grasslands, and woodlands. Tropical forests are characterized as having little variance in temperature (around 23°C) and length of daylight (around 12 hours).
What is the main habitat of elephant?
savannasThey are found most often in savannas, grasslands, and forests but occupy a wide range of habitats, including deserts, swamps, and highlands in tropical and subtropical regions of Africa and Asia.
How many African elephants left 2022?
With only 40,000-50,000 left in the wild, the species is classified as endangered. And it is critical to conserve both African and Asian elephants since they play such a vital role in their ecosystems as well as contributing towards tourism and community incomes in many areas.
What is African elephants niche?
Ecological niche African bush elephants play a significant role in the local ecosystem. Due to reducing tree density within their range, these animals maintain the ecosystem of savanna and open woodland, helping many plants and animals survive.
What do elephants need in their habitat?
Elephants need extensive land areas to survive and meet their ecological needs, which includes food, water, and space. On average, an elephant can feed up to 18 hours and consume hundreds of pounds of plant matter in a single day.
Do elephants live in the rainforest?
African forest elephants are the elusive cousin of the African savanna elephant. They inhabit the dense rainforests of west and central Africa.
Are elephants scared of mice?
Theories abound that elephants are afraid of mice because the tiny creatures nibble on their feet or can climb up into their trunks. However, there's no evidence to back up either of those claims.
Are elephants friendly?
Elephants are highly sensitive and caring animals, much like humans. If a baby elephant cries, the herd will touch and caress the baby with their trunks to soothe it.
How many elephants are killed a year?
From over 100 seizures made in the continent in the last 15 years, almost 465,000 pounds of ivory were recovered. That translates into the deaths of over 30,000 elephants. But this hasn't dampened the illegal trade in ivory. Tens of thousands of elephants are lost every year; one killed every 15 minutes.
What are 5 interesting facts about elephants?
Top 10 facts about elephantsThey're the world's largest land animal. ... You can tell the three species apart by their ears. ... Their trunks have mad skills. ... Their tusks are actually teeth. ... They've got thick skin. ... Elephants are constantly eating. ... They communicate through vibrations.More items...
How many elephants are left in the world in 2022?
Total elephant population in the world is estimated to be 497,000 by 2022 living in the wild. They belongs to belonging to the family Elephantidae, The African bush elephant also called savanna elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant are the three types of species living on earth.
What's the biggest elephant?
male African savanna elephantThe largest elephant on record was an adult male African savanna elephant. He weighed about 24,000 pounds (10,886 kilograms) and was 13 feet (3.96 meters) tall at the shoulder! Most elephants don't get that large, but African elephants do grow larger than Asian elephants.
Why are elephants so endangered?
Numbering three to five million in the last century, African elephant populations were severely reduced to its current levels because of hunting. In the 1980s, an estimated 100,000 elephants were killed each year and up to 80% of herds were lost in some regions. In recent years, growing demand for ivory, particularly from Asia, has led to a surge in poaching. Populations of elephants—especially in southern and eastern Africa—that once showed promising signs of recovery could be at risk due to the recent surge in poaching for the illegal ivory trade.
How does WWF help elephants?
To increase public support for elephant conservation by reducing conflict , WWF trains wildlife managers and local communities to use modern methods and tools to mitigate human-elephant conflict. In places like the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania, WWF monitors interactions between humans and elephants and works with local communities to develop sustainable practices of mitigating conflict with elephants.
What are the differences between a forest elephant and a savanna elephant?
There are two subspecies of African elephants—the Savanna (or bush) elephant and the Forest elephant. Savanna elephants are larger than forest elephants, and their tusks curve outwards. In addition to being smaller, forest elephants are darker and their tusks are straighter and point downward. There are also differences in the size and shape ...
What is the biggest driver of elephant poaching?
Illegal Wildlife Trade. The illegal demand for ivory is the biggest driver of elephant poaching. Despite a global CITES ban on international sales of ivory since 1990, tens of thousands of elephants are killed to meet a growing demand for ivory products in the Far East.
How are elephants recognized?
They are easily recognized by their trunk that is used for communication and handling objects. And their large ears allow them to radiate excess heat. Upper incisor teeth develop into tusks in African elephants and grow throughout their lifetime. There are two subspecies of African elephants—the Savanna (or bush) elephant and the Forest elephant.
Why are elephants in decline?
Forest elephants, a distinct subspecies of African elephants, are uniquely adapted to the forest habitat of the Congo Basin, but are in sharp decline due to poaching for the international ivory trade.
How many elephants were killed in the 1980s?
In the 1980s, an estimated 100,000 elephants were killed each year and up to 80% of herds were lost in some regions.
How does an elephant's trunk help it grow?
While feeding, the African elephant uses its trunk to pluck leaves and its tusk to tear at branches , which can cause enormous damage to foliage. Fermentation of the food takes place in the hindgut, thus enabling large food intakes. The large size and hindgut of the African elephant also allows for digestion of various plant parts, including fibrous stems, bark and roots.
What is the genetic diversity of African elephants?
The African forest elephant was found to have a high degree of genetic diversity, perhaps reflecting periodic fragmentation of their habitat during the climatic changes in the Pleistocene. Gene flow between the two African elephant species was examined at 21 locations.
How long does it take for an elephant to have a baby?
Elephants have the longest gestation period of any mammal, with each elephant species having a gestation period of roughly 22 months. However, there's slight variations between the African elephant (640–673 days), and the Asian elephant (623-729) (nbci.gov). As the largest land mammal on Earth, calves are born at about 200 pounds (90 kg). The elephant is a complex organism, with the trunk alone having roughly 100,000 muscles, making development stages very drawn out.
What is the name of the extinct African elephant?
Between the late 18th and 20th centuries, the following extinct African elephants were described on the basis of fossil remains: North African elephant ( Loxodonta africana pharaohensis) proposed by Paulus Edward Pieris Deraniyagala in 1948 was a specimen from Fayum in Egypt.
How many times do elephants replace their teeth?
Elephants replace their teeth four to six times in their lifetimes. Around 40 to 60 years of age, the elephant loses the last of its molars and will likely die of starvation, a common cause of death. African elephants have 24 teeth in total, six on each quadrant of the jaw.
What is the name of the elephant's teeth?
Loxodonte was proposed as generic name for the African elephant by Frédéric Cuvier in 1825. This name refers to the lozenge -shaped enamel of the molar teeth, which differs significantly from the rounded shape of the Asian elephant 's molar enamel. An anonymous author used the Latinized spelling Loxodonta in 1827.
Why are elephants important to African cultures?
It is also praised for its size, longevity, stamina, mental faculties, cooperative spirit, and loyalty. The animal's religious importance is mostly totemic. Many societies believed that their chiefs would be reincarnated as elephants. During the 10th century AD, the people of Igbo-Ukwu, near the Niger Delta, buried their leaders with elephant tusks.
Why do elephants have large ears?
Elephants also have rather large ears. They are designed this way to pump blood around them to help cool the elephant down under the hot African sun. The more the ears flap, the hotter the elephant is.
Why do elephants never forget?
They say an elephant never forgets. This could be because they are extremely intelligent creatures and have brains that can weigh as much as 4-6 kg.
What are the different types of elephants?
Most people believe that there are only two species of elephant in the word, but in fact there are three: 1 African savannah, Loxodonta africana 2 African forest, Loxodonta cyclotis 3 Asian, Elephas maximus
How many teeth do elephants have?
Despite this, elephants are very prone to skin parasites and use mud and dust baths to try and get rid of them, as well as to cool off. Elephant have six sets of teeth that grow one set after another, throughout their lives. By the time they reach their 50's, most elephant have started to use their final set.
What do elephants eat?
Elephants are herbivores and only eat grasses, herbs, fruit, plants and trees. Their healthy, vegetarian diet is obviously good for them as the average elephant has a life span of around 70 odd years, a bit like we do.
How much food do elephants eat?
To feed an animal of such gigantic proportions takes a lot of food. Their daily food intake is almost as much as 4-7% of their body weight. When you are an elephant, that equates to finding and eating an awful lot of food. As you would expect, all that food needs to be digested and dozed off, which is why our elephant friends can deposit upwards of 150 kg of dung daily! Eew!
What is a bull elephant?
Bull elephants are also known as “bachelors” and often seen with other male elephants to form small groups of their own. Family life is definitely all about mums and their babies, although the male elephants are usually not too far away, keeping an eye on their offspring.
How far do elephants migrate?
Migration distances vary considerably depending on environmental conditions. During a prolonged dry season in Africa, elephant migration distances were recorded to extend over 100 km (62 mi.). Studies documenting Asian elephants in deciduous forests of southern India, with numerous water sources, reported elephant migration to extend between 20 and 50 km (12 and 31 mi.).
What are savannas characterized by?
Savannas are characterized as grasslands with widely scattered trees. They generally have distinct dry and rainy seasons.
How many elephants are there in the world?
African elephants are estimated to have a total population between 400,000 and 660,000 individuals. Individual forest and savanna populations have not been reported by the IUCN—The World Conservation Union, pending further genetic and phylogenic research for various hybrid classifications.
What are the habitats of African elephants?
African elephants inhabit a diverse array of habitats including tropical forests, savannas, grasslands, and woodlands.
Why do families separate themselves from the larger herd?
This method may be used in response to limited food supplies encountered during a dry season migration. If food sources are scarce along the migratory route, it is more efficient to travel as individual families, rather than large herds.
What is the difference between a forest and a woodland?
Woodlands differ from forests by having a large, open canopy with sunlight filtering between treetops.
Why do young people travel between dominant females?
The young travel between the dominant females for protection and supervision. Several family groups, usually between two and five, may form a larger group called bond groups for migration. Bond groups provide additional security due to more sets of watchful eyes.
Why do elephants walk?
They form emigrational paths that they continue to follow year after year. This allows them to take advantage of the foods that grow in various areas. The paths that they walk are clearly there just like a road and they are fascinating to see when you are looking at areas that don’t have any clear pathways other than these from the elephants as they roam around.
Why do elephants love to bathe?
They also love to play and to bathe in water so they don’t mind traveling long distances to find it. One of the reasons why elephants have been able to survive for so long in the wild has to do with their high level of intelligence.
What are the threats to elephants?
One of the biggest threats to elephants in the wild is the continually destruction of their natural habitat. This gives them less room to roam in order to find adequate supplies of food. They can consume more than 50 tons of food per day so they need quite a selection of it to choose from.
Why do elephants live in different places?
Elephants are able to survive in a variety of different locations because of the huge variety of food sources that they consume. Many people assume that elephants that are in the wild only live in the grasslands.
Why are elephants so stressed?
When they are in a circus setting they are living in even worse conditions. They are often chained up and forced to stand still in small cages. This can lead to a great deal of stress for elephants. They are instinctively driven to be able to move at their own leisure.
Do elephants lose their habitat?
Even with some great conservation efforts in place they remain in serious jeopardy of losing their natural habitat. The habitat for elephants in captivity is a far cry from what they experience in the wild. Most zoos offer them a generous amount of room to roam but it is nothing like what they would have in the wild.
Do zoos have water?
Most zoos offer them a generous amount of room to roam but it is nothing like what they would have in the wild. Still, they have plenty of water and food so they don’t need to travel for those reasons. They are also offered plenty of toys so that they don’t become bored.
How do savanna elephants live?
Savanna elephants live in a rather complex social hierarchy . These animals gather into family units, consisting of about 10 females and their offspring. Reaching maturity, male calves usually leave the family unit, forming bachelor herds or living solitarily. As a general rule, males socialize with these family groups only when mating. Meanwhile, several family herds may gather together, making up a 'clan'. Each clan is dominated by a female matriarch, and can consist of as many as several hundred elephants. African bush elephants are very careful and protective animals. Allomothering is a common practice in this species: females can raise calves of other females of their herd. They protect and care for calves of the herd, while all adults are sleeping. If a calf strays too far, these allomothers are responsible for retrieving the baby. These active animals are constantly on the move. These elephants forage during the daytime hours, wandering the home range of their herd. Savanna elephants freely communicate with conspecifics both verbally and non-verbally.
Why are African bush elephants important?
Due to reducing tree density within their range, these animals maintain the ecosystem of savanna and open woodland, helping many plants and animals survive. Due to digging, they make holes in dry riverbeds; they usually dig or enlarge caves when looking for salt, thus creating shelter for various animals.
Why are elephants endangered?
This elephant is currently threatened by poaching for its ivory fetches, which are highly valued in black markets in Asian countries as well as the United States. In addition, war and over-exploitation of natural resources usually cause increased poaching for their meat. African bush elephants frequently come into conflict with people as a result of growing human population: thus, about 70% of their range lie outside the protected areas, due to which they often damage agriculture and water supplies, leading to injuries and even mortality in both people and elephants. On the other hand, growing human population combined with land conversion is one of the biggest threats to the population of this species, causing fragmentation of their natural habitat.
What is the largest elephant in Africa?
HEIGHT. Savanna elephant, or otherwise known as African bush elephant, is the largest elephant in Africa. Considerably large ears help the animal radiate excess heat. The hind limbs are shorter than the fore-limbs. The animal possesses a tusk, which aids in marking, feeding, digging and fighting. The Savanna elephant impresses with its massive ...
What is an allomother?
Allomothering is a common practice in this species: females can raise calves of other females of their herd. They protect and care for calves of the herd, while all adults are sleeping. If a calf strays too far, these allomothers are responsible for retrieving the baby. These active animals are constantly on the move.
How many African bush elephants are there?
According to the Wikipedia resource, the total number of the African bush elephants today is more than 15,000 individuals. Currently, this species is classified as Vulnerable (VU) on the IUCN Red List, and its numbers are increasing.
What animal has spongy pads?
On the bottom of its feet, the African Bush elephant possesses spongy pads, which soften its footsteps, allowing the animal to walk with making minimum noise. The extremely flexible trunk of this animal has 100,000 various muscles.
Where Do Elephants Live?
Up until the end of the last ice age, elephant-like creatures roamed across the massive Eurasian Steppe and across much of North America.
Where Does the African Bush Elephant Live?
Elephants communicate in a variety of ways – including sounds like trumpet calls (some sounds are too low for people to hear), body language, touch and scent. Sadly, about 90% of African elephants have been wiped out in the last century due to poaching.
The African forest elephant
Male forest elephant at (forest clearing), Ivindo National Park, Gabon.
The Asian elephant
An Asian elephant in the beautiful forest at Kanchanaburi province in Thailand.
Description
Physical characteristics
- They have two tusks, a pair of large ears, and four thick legs. Their skin is gray in color, and incredibly thick. They frequently wallow in mud to protect their skin from sunburn.
Habitat
- African bush elephants live in a number of different ecosystems. They can be found in flood plains, savannas, montane forests, woodlands, and more. The smaller African forest elephants inhabit semi-deciduous, moist rainforests.
Distribution and habitat
- African elephants can be found scattered across sub-Saharan Africa. The bush elephants are found throughout central, eastern, and southern Africa. The forest elephants are found in the denser forests of the Congo basin and West Africa. Larger African bush elephant species cannot spread into these areas, as their large size makes it difficult to tra...
Diet
- Elephants are herbivores, and will eat a wide variety of vegetation. Some common food items include fruit, leaves, bark, grass, flowering plants, leaves, shrubs, and even small trees. African forest elephants feed more heavily on fruits, seeds, leaves, bark, and branches. They use their prehensile trunks to pick leaves from branches, pull mouthfuls of grass, and rip entire branches f…
Impact
- Humans cause extreme African elephant population decline and fragmentation. Indirectly, land development and urbanization push elephants out of their habitat. Farming also reduces available natural foraging, and this leads to conflicts with farmers. Elephants can decimate crop production in just a few nights, and farmers will retaliate with attempts at killing the elephants.
Quotes
- Sadly, these conflicts arent even the most pressing danger to African elephant survival. Illegal poaching and sale of ivory on the black market decimated elephant populations. In Tanzania alone, it is estimated that 60% of the elephant population was lost between 2009 and 2014. We humans are fighting back, by protecting the African elephants that are left, and battling the illega…
Risks
- Not only is it illegal to own an African elephant as a pet, but it is also extremely dangerous and expensive! Such large animals are simply impractical to own as a pet.
Habits
- In zoos, African elephants are provided with large amounts of space to roam, and plenty of browse to feed on. Because they are social animals, they are kept in small herds. Because they are extremely intelligent, they must be provided with lots of environmental enrichment in the form of toys, puzzles, water hoses, and training. Elephants have very tight knit social bonds, and live i…
Behavior
- To keep them healthy, they are trained using positive reinforcement to perform behaviors that help zookeepers take care of them. These behaviors are called husbandry behaviors. Some examples include nail trimming and foot care, dental examinations, standing on a scale for weighing, ultrasounds, and voluntarily allowing their blood to be drawn for testing. Male elephant…
Reproduction
- After mating, the female elephant has a gestation period of 22 months nearly 2 years! The male elephant takes no part in the care of the calf, and leaves after mating. When the calf is born, the entire herd takes part in protecting and raising it. For the first year, the calf will gain between 2 and three 3 per day! It can take between 2 and 3 years before they are fully weaned.
Overview
African elephants (Loxodonta) are a genus comprising two living elephant species, the African bush elephant (L. africana) and the smaller African forest elephant (L. cyclotis). Both are social herbivores with grey skin, but differ in the size and colour of their tusks and in the shape and size of their ears and skulls.
Both species are considered at heavy risk of extinction on the IUCN Red List; a…
Distribution and habitat
African elephants are distributed in Sub-Saharan Africa, where they inhabit Sahelian scrubland and arid regions, tropical rainforests, mopane and miombo woodlands. African forest elephant populations occur only in Central Africa.
Taxonomy
The first scientific description of the African elephant was written in 1797 by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who proposed the scientific name Elephas africanus. Loxodonte was proposed as a generic name for the African elephant by Frédéric Cuvier in 1825. This name refers to the lozenge-shaped enamel of the molar teeth, which differs significantly from the rounded shape of the Asian ele…
Description
African elephants have grey folded skin up to 30 mm (1.2 in) thick that is covered with sparse, bristled dark-brown to black hair. Short tactile hair grows on the trunk, which has two finger-like processes at the tip, whereas Asian elephants only have one. Their large ears help to reduce body heat; flapping them creates air currents and exposes the ears' inner sides where large blood …
Behavior and ecology
Elephants are the animals with the lowest sleep times, especially African elephants. Their average sleep was found to be only 2 hours in 24-hour cycles.
Both African elephant species live in family units comprising several adult cows, their daughters and their subadult sons. Each family unit is led by an older cow known as the matriarch. African forest elephant groups are less cohesive than …
Threats
Both species are threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, and poaching for the illegal ivory trade is a threat in several range countries as well. The African bush elephant is listed as Endangered and the African forest elephant as Critically Endangered on the respective IUCN Red Lists.
Based on vegetation types that provide suitable habitat for African elephants, i…
Conservation
In 1986, the African Elephant Database was initiated with the aim to monitor the status of African elephant populations. This database includes results from aerial surveys, dung counts, interviews with local people and data on poaching.
In 1989, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora listed the African elephant on CITES Appendix I. This listing ba…
In culture
Many African cultures revere the African elephant as a symbol of strength and power. It is also praised for its size, longevity, stamina, mental faculties, cooperative spirit, and loyalty. Its religious importance is mostly totemic. Many societies believed that their chiefs would be reincarnated as elephants. In the 10th century, the people of Igbo-Ukwu in Nigeria buried their leaders with elephant tusks.