Asian Elephant

The Asiatic elephant is found in parts of India and Southeast Asia, including Sumatra and Borneo. Asian elephants were formerly widely distributed south of the Himalayas, throughout Southeast Asia, and in China as far north as the Yangtze River. This species once roamed through much of the Asian Continent south of the Himalayas, extending into China and south to the islands of Sumatra and Borneo.

They are classified as Endangered on the IUCN Red List 2004, and listed on Appendix I of CITES. The Asian elephant is protected from international trade by its listing on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), although illegal poaching remains a problem. Many elephants occur within protected reserves but these are often too small to accommodate them, leading to human-elephant conflict. The creation of wildlife corridors to extend reserve lands, together with the cessation of poaching are just some of the conservation steps needed to secure the future of the Asian elephant.

Asian elephants mainly use scrub forest, although their habitat can vary. They can be found in the jungle, but generally on the edge where open, grassy areas are accessible. They prefer areas that combine grass, low woody plants, and forest. Elephants rarely forage in one area for more than a few days in a row.

The head and body length is 550 to 640 cm and shoulder height is 250 to 300 cm. The skin is thick and dry, and the few hairs are stiff. Their skin color varies from grey to brown. In contrast to the African elephant, the Asian elephant's ears are much smaller, the back is not as sloping, the head rather than the shoulders is the highest part of the body, the trunk has a single finger-like projection rather than two, and the hind foot has 4 nails rather than 3. The cylindrical feet consist of reduced phalanges resting on a pad of elastic tissue. The cerebral hemisphere is quite convoluted, resembling that of humans and dolphins. The elephant's teeth are unique. They have a limited number of very large teeth that move forward in the mouth as the animal ages; as the front teeth are worn away with use they are replaced from behind. If an elephant lives long enough to have used up all of its teeth it then starves to death. In males, a pair of incisors is elongated (growing 17 cm per year throughout the animal's life) into tusks. Unlike African elephant females, Asian females do not bear tusks.

Cows only reach sexual maturity at 10 years of age, and the interval between births may be as long as 4 years owing to the long gestation time and infant dependency. The single calf may suckle from other females in the group as well as their own mother. Female Asian elephants bear a single calf (usually) after a gestation of more than a year and a half (18 to 22 months). Their estrus cycle is about 22 days, out of which they are receptive to copulation on only one day, the first day of estrus. There is no seasonality in their reproduction. Females on good quality habitats give birth every three to four years, while the interbirth interval can be much longer among females inhabiting poor quality areas. Newborns weigh about 100 kg and can stand soon after birth. The infant may nurse from its mother or from other lactating females. After a few days it can follow its mother as she goes about her normal activities. Young begin to eat some grass after several months but may continue nursing for 18 months. They also eat their mother's dung, which contains nutrients as well as the symbiotic bacteria that aid in the digestion of cellulose. Mothers continue to supervise their young for several years after weaning. Both sexes become sexually mature at about 14 years of age, but males cannot mate until they can dominate other adult males. Males leave their natal herd at this age, but females remain with their female relatives throughout their lives.

Asian elephants are smaller than their African savannah relatives (Loxodonta africana) and have many other physical features that distinguish them. The ears are smaller and the back is more rounded so that the crown of the head is the highest point of the body. One of the characteristic features of an elephant are the modified incisor teeth which are known as tusks, however, only some male Asian elephants have tusks, whilst females (cows) have 'tushes' instead, that are seldom visible. Elephants support their stocky body on stout, pillar-like legs, and the nose and upper lip are joined and elongated into a trunk. The trunk provides a wide variety of functions from feeding, vocalisation, bathing and fighting. The thick, wrinkly skin covering the body is a greyish-brown colour and very dry.

Elephants are highly intelligent and long-lived animals; Asian elephants may live as long as 70 years They are extremely sociable and occur in groups of related females, led by the oldest female known as the 'matriarch'. Groups of Asian elephants average 6 - 7 individuals, and will occasionally join with other groups to form herds; although these are more transient than those of African savanna elephants. Males leave their birth group when then reach sexual maturity at around 6 to 7 years of age, after which time they are predominantly solitary.

Interesting fact:

When males reach 20 years old they start coming into 'musth', an extreme state of arousal when levels of testosterone in the blood may increase 20 times. This state lasts about 3 weeks and during this time the individual will become aggressive and wander widely in search of females. Musth may cause males to fight for access to females and also increases their attractiveness to females.

Asian elephants are quite social. Cows form stable herds of about 20 or more of their female relatives. These matriarchal groups are led by the oldest female, who coordinates the herd's movements in search of food and water. Herds may temporarily break up into smaller subgroups, which maintain contact through low frequency long-distance vocalizations. Males are sometimes found with these herds, especially when a female is in estrus. Generally only the dominant male mates with the females. Males may travel alone or in temporary male groups. This species does not appear to be territorial. Males have home ranges of about 15 sq km, and herds of females of about 30 sq km (larger in the dry season). In the past these animals migrated seasonally, but human activities such as agriculture have now made this virtually impossible. Elephants use their tusks for a variety of purposes: to dig for water, remove bark from trees, maneuver fallen trees and branches, mark trees, rest their trunk on, fight with, and, in domestic animals, for various kinds of work. Elephants are left or right tusked, just as humans are left or right handed. Their trunks, which are formed by the combination of the elongated nose and upper lip, are also very useful. At the tip are two finger-like extensions which are very sensitive and can be used for precise manipulation of objects. They are used in eating, drinking, smelling and breathing, touching, vocalizing, washing, dusting (throwing dirt onto the back, possibly as a way of deterring insects), and fighting. The senses of touch and hearing are acute, but eyesight is somewhat poor. Like other large mammals, elephants are more tolerant of cold than of excessive heat. They spend the hottest part of the day in the shade, and dissipate heat through their ears, which they flap at different speeds according to how hot they are.

These elephants eat a wide variety of species of vegetation. They prefer grasses, but they also consume bark, roots, leaves, and stems of trees, vines, and shrubs. Most of an adult's activities involve moving toward and eating food. They eat in the morning, evening, and night but rest during the hottest part of the day. An average day's intake is 150 kg of vegetation, of which only about 44% is actually digested (with the aid of symbiotic gut bacteria). Elephants eat long grasses by plucking a "handful" with their trunk and putting the bundle in their mouth. To eat short grasses, they kick up a pile of dirt with their feet and sweep the grass into their mouth, again with the end of their trunk. Shrubs are eaten by breaking off twigs with the trunk and inserting them into the mouth. To eat the bark off larger branches, they hold the branch with their trunk and rotate it while scraping off the bark with their teeth - similar to the way people eat corn on the cob. Elephants also drink at least once a day (140 liters of water may be consumed in just one day) and so are never very far from a water supply.

Elephants use their dexterous trunk to pluck at grasses and pass them into their mouths; the average daily intake of food is 150 kg of vegetation a day. Grasses make up the mainstay of the Asian elephant's diet but scrub and bark are also eaten, and calves may eat their mothers dung to obtain nutrients. Where elephants occur near plantations they will readily feed on banana or rice crops. Asian elephants have had a close relationship with man over the centuries; they are still used to clear timber particularly in some of the more inaccessible forests of the continent, and play an important role in the religious and cultural history of the region.