Asian elephants. Climatic Conditions Suitable for Elephants Video: Efficient Raw Food Diet

Let's start with arithmetic:

- the height of the Asian elephant - up to 3 meters, weight - up to 5 tons;

- his heart weighs 12 kilograms. It beats 40 times a minute. And about 12 times in the same time his lungs breathe;

- the normal body temperature of an elephant is 35.9 degrees;

- intestine length - about 40 meters;

- In 18 hours an elephant can eat 360 kilograms of all kinds of food. Drinks about 90 liters of water per day;

- the elephant sleeps only 2-4 hours a day;

- pregnancy in elephants - 20-22 months. She usually gives birth to her first baby elephant at the age of 10 years. And in a lifetime it brings them about only 7;

- a newborn baby elephant weighs 100 kilograms, its height is about a meter. The elephant gives birth while standing;

- fat content of milk - up to 20 percent. She feeds the baby elephant with milk for about six months. But sometimes 2-3 years;

- The maximum age of an elephant recorded in captivity is 67 years. But in the wild, in the jungle, elephants usually live only up to 35–37 years;

- an elephant smells water at a distance of up to a kilometer (and some claim that up to five!). "Tamed elephants are able to distinguish real from counterfeit banknotes by smell," writes Italian biologist Lino Penati;

- despite its enormous height and weight, the elephant, walking on the ground, presses on it with a minimum load: only 600 grams per square centimeter of surface. Walks very quietly, "making no more noise than a leaf falling on a calm surface of water" (Lino Penati);

- The speed of a peacefully wandering herd of elephants is 7 kilometers per hour. But they can easily increase it to 15 kilometers. A furious elephant is chasing a car at a speed of 40 kilometers per hour.

Did you know that a million years ago, 452 species of various prehistoric elephants (at least known to science) roamed the earth. Now there are only two types left: with bosom African and Asian, or Indian. Before, some 5-6 thousand years ago, African elephant lived in the Sahara (then there was no desert here). In Sinai, he met with an Asian elephant, which, as far back as the second millennium BC, was found in present-day Turkey, and in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, in Persia and China. Now its area is limited to the island of Sri Lanka, southwest and east of India, Burma, Indochina, Malaya, Sumatra, Kalimantan. It must be said that in these countries the elephant has been greatly exterminated and is found only in places. In our time, only 400 thousand elephants have survived in Asia and Africa. 45 thousand of them are killed every year. Make simple calculations, and it will be clear to you how long the elephants will live on the earth ...

The Asian elephant has four subspecies.

Indian elephant. The most numerous: there are about 20 thousand of them, including those who have been tamed.

Ceylon elephant. He often has no tusks ("only every tenth male has tusks"). The number is about 2.5 thousand.

Sumatran elephant. Strongly exterminated.

Malay elephant. Approximately 750 animals.

There were four more subspecies: Mesopotamian, Persian, Chinese and Javanese. But they were exterminated in antiquity and in the Middle Ages.

"The Macedonians stopped at the sight of the animals and the king himself. The elephants standing among the soldiers looked like towers from a distance. Por was taller than ordinary people, but he seemed especially tall thanks to the elephant he rode and which was as much larger than the others as the king was. above other Indians. "

(Quintus Curtius Rufus)

"At last I see the danger worthy of me.", - whispered Alexander the Great ... Before him stood the army of the Indian king Pora. 200 elephants, staggered at intervals of 30 meters, filled with infantry. It was in 326 BC at the Battle of the Hydasp River.

“Our spears are long enough and strong enough, - said Alexander, - they can be used against elephants ... Such kind of protection as elephants is dangerous ... They attack the enemy by order, but their own from fear. horse forward. "

The battle began and was extremely stubborn.

"It was especially scary to watch when elephants grabbed armed people with their trunks and handed them over to their drivers over their heads."

"The Macedonians, these recent victors, were already looking around, looking for where to run ... So, the battle was ineffectual: the Macedonians either chased the elephants or ran away from them; Slightly curved swords were called copids, they were used to cut the trunks of elephants ...

And now the elephants, finally, exhausted from their wounds, in their flight brought down their own ... So, the Indians abandoned the battlefield in fear of the elephants, which they could no longer tame. "

And so almost always: more often than not, the use of elephants for their troops was little, but a lot of harm!

Poured tobacco into the dough

And, nevertheless, almost all the generals of antiquity sought to acquire war elephants. Even Caesar, which did just fine without them.

Elephants took part in many battles of antiquity. Usually, several dozen elephants were brought into battle, but sometimes almost half a thousand, for example, in the battle of Ipsus in 301 BC, where the elephants decided the outcome of the battle (as you can see, it happened so!).

Armor was worn on war elephants. Swords were tied to the trunk, and poisoned spears were tied to the tusks. On the back stood a whole fortification - a wooden tower protected by metal sheets. It housed archers and spearmen, and often the "general staff" of the entire army.

There was also anti-tank, that is, anti-slopes, artillery - special, striking the thick-skinned giants with ballistae and catapults. There were also special, as we have already seen from the story of Rufus, axes and sickles that cut the legs and trunks of elephants.

In the battle of Thapsus, near a small North African city, in one of Caesar's wars, the living "tanks" undertook their last and, again, unsuccessful offensive. This is in the "European", so to speak, theater of military operations, within the Roman Empire. However, in tropical countries, for a long time after Caesar, elephants fought in the ranks with the soldiers. For example, Jalal ad-Din Akbar, emperor of the Mughal Empire in India (1556–1605), considered it expedient to bring elephants into battle when capturing the Khitor fortress, which was defended by 8 thousand soldiers. And he was an excellent commander. An eyewitness writes:

"The sight was too gruesome to describe in words, for the angry animals crushed these brave warriors like locusts, killing three out of every four."

And today, the history of war elephants has its continuation. In World War II, the XIV British Army operating in Burma had 200 elephants. They transported 20,000 tons of military equipment in the midst of the rainy season.

There were elephants in the Japanese army, which launched its unsuccessful invasion of India in March 1944. Here, for the first time in history, live "tanks" of antiquity and modern military equipment met on the battlefield. British dive bombers attacked Japanese transports, and in one of these raids 40 elephants were killed at once.

The last clash between elephants and aircraft was during the Vietnam War. Then one American bomber shot from machine guns and cannons a column of 12 pack elephants and killed 9 animals.

"But why, when a wild herd is being driven, the elephants do not drag people off the tame elephants?"

I often asked myself this question. I cannot answer it. All I know is that the person who sits on the back of a tame elephant remains in the midst of a wild herd in complete safety. "

(Charles Mayer)

In captivity, elephants do not breed well. For example, only 67 elephants were born in the zoological gardens of Europe and America between 1902 and 1965. And half of them died before they could be raised.

It is hardly more successful in obtaining offspring in Asia from working elephants. But there is also another reason that encourages the owners of elephants to avoid their reproduction - economic: elephants have a long pregnancy (longer than even whales), elephants eat a lot, and the baby elephant needs to be raised and fed for a long time before it becomes fit for work ( up to 10 years). Therefore, it is more profitable to replenish the herd of working elephants by catching and training wild ones. Such a hunt is called khedda (often the kraal is also called, where wild elephants are driven).

Collect up to fifty of the strongest working elephants and up to two thousand beaters. First, they hunt down a herd of wild elephants in the jungle, surround it and do not allow it to go far. And at this time, a corral - kraal - is being built nearby. Usually it is a long corridor of thick logs 200 meters long. On the side where the elephants are driven, the entrance is surrounded by wings spreading outward - a kind of funnel turns out, with a narrow neck facing the kraal. At the opposite end of the kraal is a sliding door. And behind it is a fenced arena with a diameter of twelve meters.

Here the kraal is ready - wild elephants are being driven into it. It happens, and a hundred elephants are herded there. Then every night the door to the arena is raised. There is a pile of sugar cane in the arena. And when, finally, some of the captive animals, getting hungry, decide to leave the corridor into the arena, the door is immediately lowered behind them. Then, with the help of working elephants, they are tied up and led to the river so that they can get drunk and bathe there. The next stage of transportation is the base camp. Gradually, all captured elephants are delivered to it. There they are divided by height, gender, paint is painted on the sides of a large number.

And training begins. It does not last long. Wild elephants, even adults, are surprisingly quick to tame — after a few months.

Working elephants have a wide variety of professional skills. They haul logs in teak logging in Burma (there are 6,000 tame elephants in this country). And they drag them not along the roads, but often through the seemingly completely impenetrable jungle. Here the elephant, depending on the terrain, either carries a log with its trunk, or drags it along the ground through narrow passages between trees. Often he has to kneel down and push the trunk of a heavy tree with his forehead through the rubble and plexus of vines.

Elephants bring their burdens to the gorges and throw them down, so that they can go down a steep path and, picking up a log, carry it further, to the river and timber rafting. They also work on timber rafting: if there is a jam, they enter the water and dismantle the dam.

They plow. Collect brushwood for the hearth and fruit for dinner. They carry people on them. At the sawmills, they haul logs, feed them under the saws, carry them away and very neatly stack the sawn boards in stacks. Sawdust is blown off them!

But as soon as the bell heralds the end of the working day, not a single trunk moves for the sake of "production"!

The elephant's working day is strictly rationed. After two hours of morning work, there is a break: from ten to three, during the hottest part of the day. Swimming in the river follows, lunch - bananas, sugarcane, leaves of their favorite trees.

Elephants work from June to February, usually only 20 days a month. The three hottest months in Burma are on vacation. On average, a working elephant works 1,300 hours a year.

This is almost 500 hours less than a person in countries with standardized work hours.

The elephant's blood temperature is 36 degrees, and he is so huge! And the horse's blood temperature: 37.6 degrees Cat's blood reaches a temperature of 38.6 degrees, despite its excessive gaiety! Human friends are not very different from cats, but there is a difference: their temperature is 38.9 degrees. Funny hamsters are not ashamed of their temperature, because at least in some way they will be on a par with an elephant. As you may have guessed, their blood temperature is 36 degrees. The rabbit, oddly enough, has the highest blood temperature: 39.5 degrees

Let us illustrate the relationship between the size and temperature of animal bodies. The body temperatures of mammals are not very different. They are approximately the same for both the elephant and the small field mouse. However, the rate of heat release in the elephant's body is about 30 times less. If inside the body of an elephant the release of heat occurred at the same rate as that of a mouse, then the released heat would not have time to leave the body of an elephant fast enough to maintain a normal temperature, the elephant would “fry” in its own skin. The smaller the warm-blooded animal, the greater the rate of heat release must be in order to compensate for the losses and maintain the body temperature, which ensures the normal vital activity of the body, the more food it must eat. The smallest mammals on Earth - Etruscan mice - weigh only 1.5 g, and eat twice as much per day. If the Etruscan mouse is left without food for even a few hours, it will die.

20 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT ELEPHANTS

1. How many elephants are left on earth? Are elephants an endangered species?

At the moment, about 600,000 African elephants and from 30,000 to 50,000 Indian elephants live on Earth. About 20% are kept in captivity - the exact amount is difficult to determine. Due to poaching, the number of African elephants decreased by 50%, from 1.3 million to 600,000, from 1979 to 1989. During this period, 8 elephants were killed by poachers every hour (70,000 per year), until the ban on ivory was issued in 1989. CITES - The Washington International Trade Convention on Endangered Species found both species so prone to extinction that they took one of the first places (Appendix 1) in the Red Book. At CITES in 1997, elephant populations in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia were listed in Appendix 2. Without any intervention, the elephant population grows only 6% per year, according to research from the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) elephant group. Elephants need support, and they will need even more in the future.

2. Since elephants have spaced thumbs, why aren't they considered primates?

When Karl Linnaeus published his classification of nature, it was based on the anatomical differences between what he defined as species. He was a Christian and believed that all living things were created by God. Later, when his classification system came to be used by evolutionists, the system was also used to try to figure out how species come together from an evolutionary perspective. Elephants are considered "primitive ungulates" belonging to the Subugulata group and forming the order Probosciodea (proboscis). The two relatively recent species are divided into two groups (Loxodonta and Elephas) ​​belonging to the Elephantidae family. Primates descend from small animals, tree shrews (Scandentia), which looked like squirrels. The character of the thumb is similar in bats and birds, which are not related but have wings. When two species are not related, but have anatomical similarities, this similarity is due to the fact that animals could simply develop similar traits, but this does not imply a connection between the species.

3. What is the average length of an elephant's trunk and tusks?

The tusks of African elephants are much longer and heavier than those of Indian elephants. The longest known African elephant tusk is 349.2 cm long.

The trunk of an elephant has more than 4,000 muscles, its length is more than 320 cm.

4. What is the difference between Asian and Indian elephants? Are they actually the same thing, and which term is considered correct?

There are no differences - they are one and the same. The generally accepted term nowadays is the Asian elephant, but in the past they were called the Indian elephant. Since they live in western India, northern China, and Sumatra and Borneo to the east, the Asian elephant is a better name than the Indian.

5. What is the volume of an elephant's blood?

The blood volume of an elephant is approximately 9.5% - 10% of body weight.

6. What is the difference between the ears of an African and an Asian elephant?

The ears of African elephants are larger than the ears of Asian ones. One ear of an adult African elephant weighs 85 kg. If an African elephant spreads its ears, then the distance between them will be equal to its height.

7. What is the maximum speed a running elephant can reach?

Frightened elephants run at a speed of 16 km / h. For a short distance, they are able to reach speeds of up to 32-40 km / h.

8. Do elephants eat and drink a lot?

In nature, elephants consume up to 300 kg of grass and leaves per day, which contain a large percentage of water. In captivity, they eat approximately 30 kg of hay per day, 10 kg of carrots or similar vegetables, and 5-10 kg of bread. Some zoos produce different grains, approximately 3-10 kg. The diet also includes vitamins (especially D) and minerals (salt, calcium). Depending on the temperature, elephants drink between 100 and 300 liters per day.

9. Why do elephants lack fur?

Evolutionists believe that the ancestors of elephants were semi-amphibians, or spent a lot of time in the water. Like most aquatic animals, they lost their fur during this period, while a thick layer of fat appeared under their skin as insulation. Some scientists apply this theory also for us - Homo sapiens. Elephants, especially Asian elephants, still tend to spend a lot of time in the water if possible.

10. What is the normal heart rate and breathing of an elephant?

Heart rate while standing 25 - 30 beats per minute.

Lateral heart rate 72 - 98 beats per minute.

Breathing - 4 - 6 breaths per minute.

Body temperature - 36 - 37 C.

11. How long does pregnancy last for elephants?

12. How long does the labor process take?

Female elephants carry their cubs for about 21 months. In the past, people believed that there was a difference in the length of gestation depending on the sex of the baby elephant, but this has not yet been proven. Births last two hours or more.

13. At what time of the year do elephants reproduce?

There are no obvious signs that elephants are breeding in a particular season. Usually, they give birth every fourth or fifth year.

14. How much does a baby elephant weigh at birth?

Newborn baby elephants weigh between 75 and 150 kg.

15. Does it ever happen that more than one baby elephant is born?

Very rare, but it does happen. At least two births of twins have been reported in India over the past 20 years, both in the state of Tamil-Nadu. In America, the birth of twins was recently recorded at the Portland Zoo.

16. Why do elephants sway?

Mostly because they are bored. When they often stay in chains, wiggling becomes a bad habit. They fall asleep and often half asleep during this movement. Elephants are likely to wiggle because the stimulation of the soles encourages blood in the legs to drain through the veins back to the heart. Commoners may assume that elephants are "crazy", but this behavior is as common for them as it is for us to walk up and down while waiting for a bus in cold weather.

17. What is the maximum age an elephant can live?

Elephants live about the same as humans. In the wild, they usually die around the age of sixty, and like many ruminants, from hunger. When the last pair of teeth wears off, they simply cannot chew. In captivity, they live a little longer due to the softer food. Unfortunately, only a few (20-30%) elephants in captivity reach this age, many die still quite young (25 years old) due to general problems of adapting to new conditions, or for physical reasons, such as problems with hooves and abdomen ... The oldest known captive elephant, Mingyak, was born in 1932 at the Hagenbeck Circus and died in 1986 at the Barnum and Bailey Brothers Circus, USA, at 54 years old.

18. What is the favorite food for elephants?

Elephants love various types of candy, just like humans. However, they cannot survive on sweets alone. The main food for captive elephants is hay or grass. If the diet is satisfactory, they can eat a variety of sweets. Elephants' favorite treats are sweet fruits like bananas and apples, or vegetables like carrots. Various breads and biscuits are also very popular. Strange tastes can develop in captivity - for example, one elephant could work hard to obtain some of the materials, including resin. Like humans, there is a danger of overeating sweets (usually due to the feeding of elephants by zoo visitors), and as a result of various health problems, such as being overweight or unnatural behavior, such as staggering along the fence for days on end waiting for the arrival of visitors with sweets. ...

19. What food do elephants naturally consume?

The diet of wild elephants is directly related to the region of their habitat. In southern India, elephants, for example, prefer ficus foliage, while elephants living in Zimbabwe may consume other plants. The food source also depends on the rainy or dry season. In general, elephants eat a variety of herbs, leaves, fruits and tree bark, which satisfies their need for minerals.

20. What predators do elephants find in the wild? What animals do elephants get along with or are they just found in the wild?

Elephants share their habitat with lions, tigers, leopards, wild dogs and other predators, depending on the area of ​​their habitat. In general, elephants are not afraid of these predators, although lions or wild dogs can drag away a newborn elephant. Therefore, elephants try to keep predators away.

In the evenings, at exactly five o'clock, a magical and seemingly mysterious action takes place on the northern outskirts of the Kenyan National Park Nairobi. Employees hang bright woolen blankets on the knotty branches of croton trees. People shout out loud and clear: “Kalama! Kitirua! Olare! " And then a group of elephants emerges from the thickets of bushes in a disorderly line: eighteen brown heads with large hanging ears. They walk slowly and stop by the trees marked with colored blankets, and the caretakers cover each baby elephant to warm it before returning home to the Nairobi nursery founded by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Fund. Elephants are brought here from all over Kenya, many of whom have become victims of poachers or clashes with people, and they nurse the babies until they start feeding on their own.

Little elephants need warmth and help from their parents or people. They themselves do not yet know how to keep warm. Later, as elephants grow older, they develop a unique ability to regulate their body temperature. And when it is cool, and when it is very hot, the elephant's temperature keeps well within a rather narrow interval of about 36 ± 2 ° C, that is, close to the temperature of the human body. This thermoregulatory system has been a mystery and a subject of study by biologists for many years. The problem is that for their enormous weight (up to 12 tons in adulthood), elephants have a relatively small body surface and thick skin to cool in the heat by convection of air. In addition, elephants lack sweat glands, which play a primary role in cooling some mammals in hot weather. Therefore, there is concern that the metabolic internal mechanism for maintaining temperature may not be able to cope with the load. Meanwhile, African elephants inhabit one third of the African continent, with temperatures in some parts of Namibia and Mali reaching 50 ° C during the day.

For a long time, it was believed that the large ears of the elephant play a major role in regulating the body temperature of the elephant. The skin on the ears of an elephant is very thin, with a fine mesh of blood vessels. On hot days, elephants flap their ears, creating a gentle breeze that cools the superficial blood vessels, and then the already cooled blood circulates through the body. The differences in ear size between African and Asian elephants can be explained, in part, by their geographic location. Africans live near the equator, where it is very hot, which is why they have such big ears. Asians live much farther north, and their ears are much smaller. An important role in cooling the elephant in the heat is also played by the trunk, with the help of which the elephants are doused with water.

However, in 2010, a study by scientists from the universities of Vienna was published in the Journal of Thermal Biology, which provided an alternative explanation for the thermoregulation of elephants. Scientists studied the temperature change of six African elephants from the Vienna Zoo using an infrared camera. Scientists have discovered up to fifteen "hot windows" on the surface of elephants' skin, which are scattered throughout the body. These zones expand as the temperature of the environment rises.

It turned out that elephants can regulate blood flow to cooling zones, thereby lowering blood temperature. In fact, scientists have destroyed the myth of the elephant's "thick skin" by discovering a very sensitive and well-controlled mechanism for regulating temperature under the skin. The scientists also found that the control of the blood flow to the elephant's ears occurs independently of the flow to the rest of the zones. The ears certainly play a primary role in the elephant's thermoregulation, but it is not the only thermoregulatory mechanism.

I would like to tell a little more about elephants in this article. These are highly developed animals. Any group of wild elephants is a single and complex organism. Baby elephants grow up in a large matriarchal family, where loving females take care of them, first of all - their own mother, as well as numerous sisters, aunts, grandmothers and just friends. The bonds within the group are strong and maintained throughout the elephant's life - about seven decades. Males live next to their mother until the age of 14, and females live all their lives. If the baby is injured or threatened, the other elephants calm and protect him.

This cohesion is ensured by a complex communications system. For short-term communication, elephants use an impressive array of vocal cues, from muffled rumblings to shrill screams and roars, and visual signs, expressing a variety of emotions through their trunk, ears, head and tail. They are also able to communicate at a great distance - over one and a half kilometers -: in order to be heard by their relatives, elephants make powerful low-frequency growling sounds.

Scientists confirm the high intellectual abilities of elephants. Magnetic resonance imaging of the elephant's brain reveals the unusually large size of the hippocampus, a region of the mammalian brain associated with memory processes and an important part of the limbic system that is involved in generating emotions. In addition, an increased number of fusiform neurons has been found in the elephant's brain. It is assumed that in humans they are associated with such abilities as self-awareness, empathy and awareness of oneself in society. It also turned out that elephants can pass a test for recognizing themselves in a mirror - until recently it was believed that only humans, some great primates and dolphins, were capable of this.

Video: How to measure the body temperature of an animal. Animal body temperature standards

Moving from place to place, we can feel how the temperature around us changes, but we do not think that the tempera & shy-tour of our body can change. It doesn't change. We are "homeothermic" and our species includes all warm-blooded animals, all mammals, domestic animals and birds.

But there are also animals whose body temperature changes along with the ambient temperature. They are called "poikilothermic" and include insects, snakes, reptiles & shy-repentants, turtles, frogs and fish. Their temp & shy-rate is usually slightly below the ambient & shy-temperature. They are cold-blooded animals.

We know that the normal temperature of a person is 36.6 ° C, i.e. almost 37 ° C. But the temperature can vary within normal limits. For example, the tempo & shy-ratura of the human body has the lowest level & shy-wen at about 4 a.m. - the temperature of the skin is lower than the temperature inside the body - the food intake rises & shy - the temperature rises for an hour or two - the muscle ra & shy-bot can raise the temperature - alcohol by & shy - lowers internal temperature.

Body temperature in animals can vary greatly: from 35 ° C for an elephant to 43 ° C for small birds. According to body temperature, animals can be classified as follows:

Video: Effective Raw Food Diet

Animals, like humans, must get rid of excess heat in order to restore their body temperature to a stable temperature. Animals that don't sweat do it by breathing - that's why your dog breathes with his tongue out on a hot day.