Is it a fact that the African elephant is a highly social African animal?

Elephant facts

Yes - African elephants are indeed very social.

The basic stable social unit among African elephants is a group of closely related adult females with their young of various ages.

The movements of a family group are directed by the oldest and biggest cow (often referred to as the matriarch) This would be a female that have accumulated her necessary experience over 30 to 40 years.

This female will make most of the decisions about where and when the herd forages, drinks and rests.

If these old cows are shot during elephant hunting their knowledge is lost and the rest of the group will wander aimlessly.

Males sometimes form small unstable bachelor groups. Two or three younger apprentices known as askaris may accompany an old male.

Family groups and males may gather into herds several hundred strong. If their usual food and water supplies dwindle elephants will move long distances to reach more favorable conditions.

The members of an African elephant family group take good care of one another. If one of them is sick or injured others will stay with it to defend it.

The calves get especially close attention. The adults help them climb steep banks and will protect them from predators.

What is the trunk of an elephant used for?

The trunk is essentially a modified nose made of muscle.

The elephant trunk serves it as an extremely skillful and yet enormously powerful two-fingered hand.

The trunk alone contains about 100,000 different muscles.

With this tool an elephant can do things from picking up single seedpods to tearing down massive trees.

An elephant drinks water by sucking 4 liters of water into its trunk and then emptying it down its throat.

The trunk is also used to suck up dust and sand to blow over itself.

In addition the trunk is an important means of communication by touch and smell.

The trunk is used for caressing, especially between mother and calf.

What are elephant tusks used for?

The tusks are used for digging, for chiseling the bark off trees, and as weapons of defense against predators or for fighting (among males).

The tusks are the upper incisor teeth and they grow throughout the life of the elephant .

Each elephant uses the one tusk more than the other so the favored ones get worn down more as the enamel come off.

What are the differences between the African and Asian Species of elephants?

The African elephants have extremely large ears that can be likened to the shape of the African content.

Similarly the smaller Asian elephant ears can be compared to the shape of the Indian subcontinent.

In the case of the African specie both males and females have visible tusks.

With the Asian specie only males have obvious external tusks.

The females have small tusks that may or may not protrude far enough to be visible.

The Asian specie has one semi-prehensile "finger" to its trunk while the African specie has two of them.

Is there really such a thing such as African elephant graveyards?

Elephants show an unexplained fascination with their dead.

They have been recorded as showing an apparent fascination for elephant bones and ivory, picking them up in their trunks, and scattering them over a wide area.

Why they behave like this is unknown.

However the believe that elephants go to special elephant graveyards to die is a myth.

The accumulation of bones and tusks around water holes where starving elephants have congregated during droughts can lead to a higher than usual percentage of accumulated elephant remains.

This could be a reason for the initial myth that such an area would be a place where elephants go to die.

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