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2005

09

Feb

I am – Animal of the Day: "African" Elephant

Welcome to the Drunken Stepfathers latest feauture., The Animal of the Day. We bbegin with the African Elephant.

The African elephant, Loxodonta africana, is a little larger than its close relative, Elephas maximus, the Asian elephant. African elephants are the largest living land animals, but some of the forest dwelling elephants are relatively small. The largest African elephants are 13 feet tall at the shoulders, 25 feet long, and weighed 16,500 pounds, or 8.25 tons! The tail is 4-5 feet long!

More Elephant Info after the Jump

The African elephant can be found in southern, central, and eastern Africa. It lives in a variety of biomes, including forests, grasslands, river valleys, and deserts. The elephant can be very destructive to its biome. It tends to defoliate areas by stripping trees of bark and branches with its powerful trunk. Its trunk is strong enough to even uproot trees.

Adaptations

The African elephant’s most obvious adaptation is its trunk, which is basically an elongated nose. It has many uses, such as sucking up water and spraying it back in its mouth. Its main use, however, is to allow the elephant to reach up in trees to reach the foliage, which it eats. The trunk is tipped with two “fingers,” which let the elephant examine, or even pick up, some small objects.

The elephant’s fan-shaped ears have many small blood vessels through them, which dissipate heat from the blood. The ears can also be used as fans, to keep hot air away from the elephant.

The tusks of the African elephant are actually the elephant’s incisor teeth. The largest single tusk ever found weighed 236 pounds and was 11 feet and 6 inches long!

Legs of the African elephant are columnlike, the same width from top to bottom. Its feet are round and have a pad, almost like the one on a cat’s paw, to support the leg. African elephants have five toes on the front feet and three on the back.

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