What can Elephant? The value and basic functions of the elephant trunk that elephants do and eat

Last week, representatives of a number of African and Asian countries agreed on the joint protection of elephants. Among the situation, the Agreement provides for cooperation in the search and arrests of poachers and the expansion of the powers of the environmental departments of the Black Continent countries in the fight against criminal colors, hunting on the largest land animals of the planet.

Elephants threaten destruction. Every 15 minutes from the hands of poachers on the Black Continent, one elephant dies. If the extermination of the largest land animals will continue at the same pace, then by 2025 there will be no elephant in African Savans.

Tanzania, for example, has already lost half of their elephants over the past three years. In 2009, this african country lived, according to different estimates, from 70 to 80 thousand elephants, that is, almost a quarter of the entire elephant population of Africa, and now it is half smaller.

According to the US Interior Minister Sally JewellThe volume of commerce with elephant bezens, surnamers, skins and other trophies of illegal safari over the past five years have doubled and reached $ 10 billion. For profitability, this type of criminal activity in the fourth place.

Not only animal defenders, but also politicians should deal with poachers. For money from the sale of ivory, which in Africa is often called "White Golden Jihad", terrorist organizations are financed. Including "Ash-Shabab", sadly "famous" recent seizure of hostages in the shopping center in Nairobi.

The most incredible rumors go about elephants. Before protecting them, it would be nice to start to start, where they are true, and where the fiction.

1. Elephants use trunks when drinking as a straw.

Elephants really use trunks for water. They actually type water in a trunk, but then cross it into the mouth. By the way, drink elephants a lot - on average from 140 to 230 liters per day.

2. Elephants love peanuts.

The purest water is the myth, because the largest land animals peanuts do not eat in the will or in zoos. Considering the size of the elephants, it does not have to be surprised that about we eat the rest of the time. Behind this occupation, they spend 16-18 hours daily. There is nothing in the peanuts that these animals would repel or were contraindicated for them. Just the nuts are very small, and in order to be satisfied with them, the elephants are not enough and 25 hours in the days.

3. Elephants are the only animals that do not know how to jump.

Adult elephants really do not know how to jump, but they are not the only ones who do not know how to do it. There are many and other mammals who also do not know how to jump. For example, sloths, hippos and rhinos. True, in contrast to elephants, hypopotamas and rhinos can take all four legs from the ground at the same time.

4. Elephants never forget.

The largest land animals actually possess the excellent, but still not phenomenal memory. The proceedings are based on the process of studying. They possess the hardest brain among land animals, which weighs 5 kg. After training, they are able to distinguish and perform over 60 teams. Elephants remember the trainers well and can remember them after many years.

5. Elephants are too heavy to swim.

On the contrary, the elephants love water very much and can determine its smell at a distance of 8 km. They not only love water, but also go fine. There are cases when they used tricks as diving breathing tubes.

1. Elephants "hear" legs.

Elephants have excellent hearing, but African elephants in addition to this can capture the trembling of the Earth with the help of special sensitive cells at the feet feet. Elephants not only hear the sound, but can also determine the direction from which it goes.

2. The closest relative of the elephant is an animal similar to the guinea pig.

Gray Damans are small, fluffy, similar to the mammals, which live in mountainous terrain in Africa and along the coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Something strange, but the elephants and Damanov really have a lot in common in the structure of the fingers on the legs, teeth and skulls. Biologists believe that they had a general ancestor that lived about 60 million years ago.

3. In Chinese "ivory" means "ivory tooth".

Despite the fact that the tissue of the elephants are actually elongated incisors, they do not fall out like people. In China, where the bone trade flourishes, not everyone understands that elephants in order to get it, kill. According to polls, this does not know about 70% of the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom.

4. Elephants are unusually thick skin.

The scientific term of PACHYDERM, used to designate the mammalian detachment, which includes elephants with rhino, is derived from the Greek word Pachydermose, which is translated as "thick-skinned". Despite the greater thickness, the skin of the elephant is unusually sensitive. So much that the elephant feels when he sits on his back ... fly.

The skin of the elephants is not only sensitive, but also vulnerable. Elephants can burn in the sun and therefore hide in the shade or throw sand on the head and back to protect the skin from the sun.

5. Elephants are very sociable and social animals.

The herd of elephants usually consists of 10-15 elephant and elevate. Heading him is the most experienced elephant. Having reached the age of maturity - 12-15 years old, males leave the herd and return only to pairing with female. By the way, the process of tooling offspring in elephants is the longest among land animals. Pregnancy lasts 22 months.

Elephants greet, carefully touching the tip of the trunk to the mouth of the interlocutor. They sleep standing and only two or three hours. It can not be longer because you should eat.

Elephants are considered not only the largest mammals on earth, but also one of the most sociable animals: alone, the elephant will not be able to live, he needs to communicate with his relatives. Noteworthy is the fact that the elephants communicate at low frequencies, and the distance between two replicating elephants can reach 10 kilometers.

Cemetery of elephants

The myth that the elephants have a separate cemetery, scientists dispelled, conducting a number of experiments. However, during these experiments, it was found that the elephants are really very respectful to the remains of their relatives: they easily recognize the bones of their fellowships in a pile of other bones, they never come to the bones of the deceased elephant, and also try to push them aside so that not There were other members of the herd.

Elephants do not sweat

Whatever it seemed strange this fact about elephants, but they really do not sweat: they do not have sebaceous glands. In order not to "weld" in the heat of elephants use mud baths, or ears. Ears at the elephants are permeated with a network of blood vessels, which in a strong heat expand and very plenty of heat into the environment. In cold periods, they narrow.

Silent as elephant

The average weight of the elephant is 12 tons, but they go very quiet. You are unlikely to notice if an elephant comes up to you in the back. The thing is that the pad of the feet of the elephant is arranged in such a way that it is capable of sprinkling and expanding, occupying more and more space as the place is transferred to her: Imagine that you are on the sole of the feathery pillow - approximately the same in the elephants. That is why they are easily walking on the swamps.

Elephants do not know how to run

Almost all animals are able to run, i.e. Move in this way when the whole body is completely in the air to some fractions of a second. The elephants, because of their large mass, they cannot raise the body into the air and run "half": the front legs are moving trot, and the rear hold all the weight and rearranged as when fast walking. In this mode, the elephant is able to develop a speed of up to 40 km / h.

Sexual orientation of elephants

Elephants Homosexuals and this is a fact! The thing is that females of elephants are ready for mating only once a year, and the pregnancy of elephants lasts 22 months (the longest pregnancy among mammals), and the males need to be paired more often. That is why they resort to each other's help and practicing same-sex relationships.

Elephants live herds

Female elephants live with herds of 10-15 individuals. They grow together a young and care about each other: they can bring water or food to elephant, which received any wound and cannot move. The elephants live in the herd to 12-14 years old, then can either stay, or separate and create their own family. The males elephants prefer loneliness, but near any flock. An elephant can leave his herd only in case he dies, or people catch it.

Elephants live for 40-60 years. The oldest elephant - Lin Van from Taiwan, he died in 2003 at the age of 86. This elephant served in the Chinese army and fought during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945).

Elephants Excellent Lovkachi

Everything that needs to be elephant, he makes his trunk: eats, breaks down the leaves, raises the items, watering. There are cases when the elephants have painted or opened mounted locks on the key.

Elephants are very smart

The brain of the elephant weighs about 5 kilograms and is more complicated than that of the other mammals. The complexity of the structure of the brain elephants is inferior only to the whales. It has been proven that the elephants feel the feeling of fun, grief, compassion, are capable of cooperating and easily trained.

Elephants are voracious

Elephants feed around 16 hours a day, we can say that they are just doing what they eat. The elephant is able to eat up to 450 kilograms of vegetation. On hot days, the elephant drinks about 300 liters of water, it is also observed for the disease. At normal temperature, the dose is reduced to 100 liters.

Elephants die out

It is no secret that the tissue of an elephant is a very expensive material, and poachers, unfortunately, do not miss this kind of earnings. The tissue of the elephants will grow by 7 inches (18 cm.) Per year and can reach lengths more than 20 feet (6 meters). If the elephant dies on his own, then the beer eat African dickeranes, thus trying to quench the mineral hunger. In many countries, the killing of the elephant punishes the death penalty.

Elephants sleep standing

All adult elephants sleep standing, having gotten into heaps and, if possible, leaning over each other. If the elephant is old and he has very big tails, he puts them on a tree or a solid. An interesting fact about the elephants is that the young elephants may well afford to fall on the side that they are successful and doing, but with age, this habit for some reason passes.

Elephants - killers

Most often in the circuses, trainers are dying from elephants, since the latter accidentally sit on them, or come. At the beginning of the 20th century, several elephants executed in the United States due to the fact that they crushed people. For example, in 1903, the Circus Slonihi Topci in 1903 was sentenced to death through the discharge of alternating current for crushing three people. And in 1916, Slonich named Big Mary for a similar misconduct, tried to shoot, but after a few hours he hung on a crane.

What elephants are able Draw, dance, swim, everyone has long been known. But what can make an elephant such that other animals can not?

What do we do if we want to draw the attention of other people to some subject? Right, we point to this subject! It turns out that people and primates are not the only living beings that can indicate something and understand such "instructions."

Scientists Anna Smith and Richard Virne from the University of St. Andrews wondered: "What knows how to make an elephant?". They found that the elephants are able to understand the index gestures of people and thanks to them to find themselves. Not all domesticated animals and animals with high intelligence are able to understand what people want from them when they show. This is all the more impressive that no one trains the elephants to such a skill: they recognize the index gestures intuitive.

This interesting fact about elephants has a logical explanation.

Researchers suggest that this congenital talent in unfortunate elephants. Just like people, elephants live in a complex group, which interacts for the sake of survival. Without mutual support, help and understand each other, they just do not do. Perhaps the elephants perform pointing gestures using tricks to report something to each other. Now scientists have to find out whether various movements of the trunk are a kind of "language", which helps elephants to communicate with relatives.

Anna Smith and Richard Byrne watched the elephants that "worked" by carriers for tourists during excursions to Victoria waterfalls in South Africa. Elephants were trained in certain speech teams, but with indicable gestures were not faced. This did not prevent animals easily and without preparing to understand the researchers.

It is also interesting that the elephants born in the wild and caught recently understood the index gestures at all worse than the elephants that have long lived with people or born in captivity.

The research results explain why elephants help people in work, everyday life and even in war for a thousand years. These animals have the natural ability to interact with people, despite the fact that, unlike dogs, horses and camels, were not domesticated or grown for these purposes. "From the point of view of knowledge, the elephants are much stronger at us, which was thought before, - Richard Byrne sums up. - And index gestures are part of the language system not only in humans. "

What can Elephant?

Elephants have always been interested in animal lovers: after all, they have a huge body weight, but at the same time they are very mobile and just affect their mental abilities and ingenuity. Below you can find out what an elephant knows.

What can an elephant know how?

Elephants are amazing animals, they have a huge amount of advantages. For this reason, the elephant is a symbol of wisdom, strength and mind. In India, it is very honored, so some gods are depicted with the face and body of an elephant.

Mental capacity

First of all, it should be noted that the elephants are very clever. Their mental abilities are higher than those of horses and human monkeys. Trains are noted that they quickly teach the team, they have good memory.

It is also important to know that the elephants are very coarse. They will definitely distort their abuser even a few years. For this reason, the animal is not recommended. In favor of the fact that the elephants have a good memory saying the fact that when these animals disappear from their homeland, they are very whining on it and never forget their relatives. There were cases when these animals died from longing in their homeland, we cried on it, lost the reason.

Elephants are very resourceful, they know how to produce a strategy and achieve the desired. They feel the danger and try to bypass it. An elephant can easily get angry, then the only salvation will be flight. When these animals are angry, they turn everything around, so they are not extremely recommended to tease.

Elephant - Graceful Being

The elephant seems cumbersome, but meanwhile, it is quite graceful creatures. They run a rhythmic step at a speed of 6 km / h. They can also run for short distances at a speed of up to 40 km / h. However, the widespread ditch of the elephant can be overcome with difficulty, since it cannot jump because of its weight. After all, if the elephant does it, then the landing will receive a lot of injuries incompatible with life.

However, a big weight does not prevent this animal to be a good swimmer. It can spend 6 hours a day in water, and floats an elephant at a speed of approximately 1.6 km / h. Elephants are not drown, because on the surface of the water he helps to keep a thick layer of subcutaneous fat, and these animals breathe through a highly raised trunk.

Why is the elephant trunk?

The most amazing thing is that the elephants are trunk. This miracle was formed due to the combustion of the nose and the upper lip. The trunk of an elephant consists of 40 thousand muscles, there is no bone in it. Trunk is a kind of tool for producing food, but an elephant uses it as a powerful weapon. Also, adult elephants drink with a trunk. As a rule, on average, half-water is sucked in it.

The force of the trunk can be called colossal. The elephant freely lifts them a log, the weight of which can reach a ton. At the end of the trunk, the African Elephant has two thumbs, and Indian has one. With the help of it with an animal
it is possible to raise a match or a small coin from the ground. Also, the trunk of the elephant tears his leaves, fruit, frees his way in the jungle.

There are very gifted elephants capable of drawing a portrait. Such a skill is especially common in Thai individuals. Indian elephants under the guidance of the trainer with pleasure take the brush in the trunk and draw pictures on canvas.

Elephants use their tissue with the mind. During the drought period, with the help of them, the animals break through the bobab bobba, after which the wet core is torn, in which moisture is located.

Elephant - Silent Animal

Often noisy people say that they are shop like elephants. However, these animals,
despite its size, move silently, and all thanks to the soft soles of the legs. An elephant can approach the person very close, and he will not notice anything.

Now you know that there may be an elephant, and you will probably admire these animals.

Learn about where these amazing animals live, from our article -.

It is a flexible muscular continuation of the upper lip and nose. African forest and savannah elephants have truncations that end in two fingerty protrusions; On the trunk of the Asian elephant there is only one such process. The trunk of an elephant performs many functions that are necessary to maintain vital animal processes, protection against predators and communications in the herd.

The following are the main functions of an elephant trunk and their brief description:

Helps eat and drink

All kinds of elephants use their trunks to capture the leaves on the branches of trees and tear the grass from the soil, and then move food into the mouth. Like food, the elephant injected water into the mouth with his trunk.

Cooling the body

During the periods of strong heat, the elephants are drawn into trunks water from rivers and water her body. The trunk of an adult elephant is able to suck up to 40 liters of water in one minute and hold up to 9 liters at a time!

Protects from insects and sun

African elephants also use their trunks for taking a shower of dust, which helps to drive into insects and protect against harmful rays of the sun (the temperature in their habitat often exceeds the mark at 35º C). To make a dust shower, the African Elephant pulls dust into his trunk, then bends him over his head and releases dust over himself (fortunately, this dust does not provoke Chihannier in animals).

Catches odors

In addition to use for food, drinking and making dust procedures, the trunk of an elephant is a unique structure that plays a fundamental role in the olfactory system of these. Elephants turn their trunks in different directions to better catch odors. Scientists believe that elephants can smell water at a distance of several kilometers.

Allows you to breathe under water

When floating (which happens very rarely), the elephants are raising their trunks above the surface of the water, like a breathing tube. These animals are the only one who is capable of crossing deep reservoirs.

Feels vibration

The trunk of an elephant is extremely sensitive and it can feel the movement of the herd of animals or thunder at the far distance.

Excellent maneuver

It is an adequate muscle structure containing more than 100,000 muscles. This is a sensitive and fairly clever part of the body, therefore elephants can collect, and distinguish between the items of different sizes, and in some cases even fight back from predators. The trunk of an elephant is so strong that it can raise objects weighing about 350 kg. With the help of finger-shaped processes, this animal is also able to deft the blasting or even hold the brush for drawing.

For communication

Not only is the trunk is used for breathing (and smelling, drinking and feeding), it is also important for communication with other members of the herd, including greetings and affection. The relationship between female mother and its offspring are protective and soothing. Mothers and other members of the herd caress in different ways. They can wrap a trunk back of the elephant, belly, shoulder and neck, and often touch his mouth. Gentle screening sound often accompanies affectionate gesture.

The trunk of the elephants appeared in the process of evolution

This part of the body of the elephant gradually developed for tens of millions of years, since the ancestors of modern elephants adapted to the changing requirements of their. The earliest identified elephant ancestors, such as phospureuriums, 50 million years ago, did not have any hobs; But as competition increased for the leaves of trees and shrubs, animals were forced to survive. In fact, the elephant developed his trunk for the same reason as a long neck!