ASIAN ELEPHANT

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments, there are consequences.
~R.G.Ingersoll~

indianelephant

ASIAN ELEPHANT

Elephants are the largest land mammals of Malaysia. Their imposing stature and docile temprament combine to make them one of the best loved animals. The Asian species inspite of its Latin name is smaller than the African; Asian elephants range from Bangladesh to Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India to Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. Elephants are indegenious to Malaysia and a wild population is found in the north-eastern part of Borneo. Most live in forests but some can be found on plains and marshes. About 14,000 to 17,000 domesticated elephants work in Asia, mostly in logging.

ORDER: Proboscidea (animals with trunks)

SUBORDER: Elephantoidea (elephant-like forms)

FAMILY: Elephantidea (elephants)

GENUS: Elephas

SPECIES: maximus

SUBSPECIES: indicus (Malaysian elephant)

MALAYSIAN NAME: Gajah. The west Malaysians refer to it as "Pak Tulang" meaning father bones and the east Malaysians call it "nenek" meaning grandmother. Elephants are feared by the people and they feel that if they call it by its real name, one might just pop out of nowhere and harm them !

SIZE: 2.5 to 3 metres (8 to 10 ft.) high. Adult males are 15% larger than the female elephants.

WEIGHT: 5000 kilograms (11,000 lbs.)

GESTATION: 21 months. 1 - 2 babies are born and they are nursed for about 2 years. A baby elephant weighs about 1200 lbs. at birth.

COLORATION: Grey

LIFE SPAN: 8 to 12 years in both sexes. The longest authenticated period in captivity is 57 years. The life span of an elephant is limited by the duration of its molar teeth (6 in each jaw). The molars do not grow together but one after another, throughout the elephants life. Only one enormous molar (parts of two) are present in the jaw at any one time. As it wears down each one is substituted by the next in succession and when the sixth and the last molars have erupted and worn away, the elephant can no longer chew its food and dies. Anyone willing to design dentures ???

BEHAVIOUR: Elephants are social animals, living in herds of 5 to 20 animals, usually under a dominant bull. Herds usually split and merge with each herd having its own beat. They live in a close knit family group and within the group individual elepahants know their status. They communicate by making rumbling sounds or trumpeting, by touching each other with their trunks and by sniffing the scents of others.
Elephants like wallowing in water not only to cool down but to take care of their skin which is very sensitive. Using their trunks they also coat their skins with a thick layer of mud. This dries on the body and helps to protect them from the sun, parasites and insects.
They are mostly active from two hours before dusk to two hours after dawn. They sleep for only 4 to 5 hours a day , usually waking at 15 minute intervals to check for danger. The hottest part of the day is spent resting under shady trees. They can travel for many square kilometres and swim across rivers.
Elephants show the same emotions as humans. They rejoice when greeting friends , comfort the young and the sick and protect their family from danger.They even grieve when another member of the group dies, covering the body with lefy branches or staying with them for several days.
Their social behaviour is very complex and not yet fully understood.

DIET: Needing little sleep, elephants spend most of their days foraging for the enormous amounts of vegetation they need to eat in order to sustain their huge bulk. They can find their way over vast expanses of any kind of terrain in search of food and water. Their diet is varied and can consist of anything from grass and leaves, to fruits and flowers, to tree bark, even mineral rich soils. Sixty plants have been identified in their natural diet. The cultivated plants are paddy, sugar cane, bananas, sweet-potatoes, tapioca, coconut, rubber and palms. In captivity they require about 125 kilograms of hay daily, plus grains. They are particularly fond of beer and other forms of alcohol; they are known to seek out fermenting durian fruits in Malaysia
Malaysian elephants are particularly fond of bananas and palms. Each year they cause extensive damage to oil palm plantations by raiding the crop. They not only eat the palm shoots but have a nasty habit of uprooting several plants in a few hours.
Elephants also require 35 to 50 gallons of drinking water per day. To drink, the elephant sucks water in its trunk and squeezes the end shut. Then it puts its trunk into its mouth and lets the water gush down its throat. When drinking it breathes only through its mouth.
Baby elephants need lots of practice to learn how to drink using their trunks and when they are very young ,will frequently drink with only their mouth, curling their trunks out of the way.

HABITAT: Elephants need a large living space as they are pure herbivores. Plants do not give as much energy as meat, so they have to graze over wide areas. The size of an elephant herd is dependant on its habitat. The more fertile a habitat is, the larger the herd it can support. The size of its ears reflect its haitat: the hotter the climate the larger the ears, because it uses its ears to cool down by flapping them.

FEATURES: The elephant's most distinguishing feature is its long flexible trunk, which are infact incisor teeth which first appear when the elephant is 2 years old. It is made up of thousands of tiny muscles,giving it incredile power and also enales it to take food from anywhere. The trunk continues to grow throughout the elephants life and weighs 60 kilograms (130 lbs). It contains over 40,000 muscles and tendons!
They have ivory tusks which are larger in male elephants. The largest tusk found in Malaysia was 1.75 metres long and weighed 41 kilograms. The size of its ears reflect its haitat: the hotter the climate the larger the ears.
The large flappy ears are another distintive feature of the elephant. They are triangular in shape and used for cooling when flapped. The size of its ears reflect its haitat: the hotter the climate the larger the ears.
Their legs are made of a pillar of thick bone with a broad foot, supported by a fatty material which helps to spead the elephants weight. Considering their size, elephants are remarkably light on their feet. !
Elephants have thick, wrinkled skin which is highly sensetive and liable to crack.

Elephants have become victims of human vanity. For millions of years they roamed freely, now over the course of time they have come under the threat of extinction. The surviving population of elephants in Malaysia in 1977 was 556 only. The space that elephants need is no longer there as more and more land is being cultivated and roads and railways replace forest valleys. The most serious threat to the elephants is the ivory trade. Ivory is simply elephant tusk, but it has been treasured for centuries for carving intricate objects. Carvings and curios fetch a high price and as long as there is a demand for these objects the killings will go on. When one elephant is killed the others tend to stay around it rather than fleeing, so whole groups can be killed in one go. Conservation of Asian elephants is under way, but worldwide efforts are required to save it from extinction. A national initiative called Project Elephant is being planned to safeguard wild elephants in India. If successful, it should guarantee the elephants survival there, even if it continues to decline elsewhere in Asia. The future of the largest land animal lies in our hands !