Elephants

Imagine that you are on a safari trip in Africa, where
you can observe plenty of animal aspects. There is a
group of zebras, giraffes , and a herd of gazelles.
However, you are not stunned by any of them but a
huge African elephant.
These colossal land mammals are not only quite
significant for their surroundings and habitats but also
for other animals that live in Africa. It is a must for us
to learn about their history in order to understand the
reason under this circumstance. The kind of African
elephants is also known as “Loxodonta,” which
belongs to the two last remaining extant genera,
“Elephantidae” beside “Elephas maximus.”. The
origin of the word “loxodonta” refers to the prolonged
and slightly curved tusks of African elephants. When
we seperate the name in two main parts as “lox” and
“odon”, the first part (lox) means “not straight” and
the second part (odon) means tooth.
Fortunately, elephants evolution journey has been
known and discovered by humankind.
“Moeritherium,” which is a basal genus of
“proboscidea,” is one of those ancestors that used to
exist. This strange-looking animal is considered one
of the very first ancestors of mammals. They lived in
the Eocene, around 38 million years ago. They are not
just the ancestors of elephants, but also sea cows
and tapirs.

After 12 million years, the primeval elephants were
finally there to walk through our planet; “Trilophodon”
was one of those ancient animals. These ancient
mastodons were capable of growing up to 5 meters
long and 2.5 meters high. They managed to last their
kinds from the epoch of Miocen (26 million years ago)
to the epoch of Plieistocene (2 million years ago),
which is quite long and equal to around 24 million
years.

“Platybelodon(flat-spear-tusk), which is another kind
of modern elephants’ ancestors and considered in
the “shovel tusker” family, not only had differences
with modern elephants, like being a little bit smaller in
size, but also had a unique feature because of its
strange-looking jaw. These herbivores lived during the
middle Miocene Epoch, mostly in Africa and Asia.
Unsurprisingly, the most famous ancestors of modern
elephants were woolly mammoths (Mammuthus
primigenius). As you may guess, they were covered
by a thick layer of fur. The saddest part of their way of
leaving this world behind is that their last members
had to live on an isolated island where not many of
them were able to survive. By the time they passed,
they mated with others that had really similar genetic
features with each other; the percentage of genetic
diseases, which used to be carried by recessive
genes, increased, and this situation is claimed to be
the thing that dug the graves of woolly mammoths.
As it is touched on in the beginning part of this article,
there are not many elephant genera left on planet
Earth. The major reasons are quite unsurprising. Their
bloodline has been in danger because of human
hunters and our needs that cause us to destroy their
habitats. By the help of their well-donated beings,
there is almost nothing in nature that can be a threat
for the elephant population except for humanity.
One of these functions is their size, as it is obviously
noticeable. On average, an African elephant might
grow up between 2.5 meters and 4 meters (these
numbers are found by the measurements that go
from toes to shoulders). Additionally, male members
can grow to be bigger than females. And when it
comes to how much they weigh, they weigh up to
2.268 kilograms to 6.350 kilograms, which gives them
an unstoppable strength and makes them the biggest
land animals on the entire planet. They use their
strength in so many different ways. They can even
make a tree fall down in order to close some certain
paths or open theirs.
When this huge amount of strength meets with
elephants’ long, curved, stone-solid tusks, they get
one of the world’s strongest weapons. Stabbing them
into an opponent would be fatal. If something messes
up with an angry, mature elephant, it will need to run
away quickly. These giants are capable of rolling even
rhinoceroses on the ground to death, or even worse.
Africa’s animals are lucky that elephants are calm
creatures.
It is almost equal to impossible for such a big animal
that grows this much to walk without breaking a bone
of theirs or injuring their ankles under their destructive
body weight, but elephants seem to be able to find
just the solution to this problem. Actually, their wide
and flattened foot pads are almost totally made of fat,
which has a spongy texture. Hence, even if they walk
in a rush, there won’t be a sign of injury or even a
noise, which would have attracted possible threats
such as an angry elephant or a group of hungry lions.
They walk on the very tip of their fingers. As scientists
examined elephant skeletons, they noticed that a
notable part of their feet did not have a solid ground.
The back part of the feet was built by fat.

The ears of an elephant are really big. But they have
more fields to be used in than we think. They can
hear lower voices than we could ever do. One of the
other functions of these leaf-like ears is chasing away
disturbing insects and pests. Elephants move their
ears back to front (or the opposite way) in order to
create a blow that takes flies, mosquitoes, and other
pests away. Another function of elephant ears is heat
reduction. The wide surfaces are perfectly suitable for
everything to lose heat, so is it the same for
elephants?
The most common feature of elephants also takes
place at their heads. One of the most interesting
things about elephants might be their long and
flexible noses, in other words, their trunks. They
include no bone but a huge amount of muscle. It
might seem easy to use it, but it is not. In fact, it
takes at least a few months only to learn how to use it
as properly as they need to. If you need a
comparison, a trunk of an elephant includes 40,000
muscles, while there are only 600 muscles in your
whole body. Some of you might have seen an
elephant drinking water directly from their trunks
while watching cartoons when you were little. Shame
on cartoons; it is not true. They use their trunks like a
hosepipe only to carry the water to their mouths, then
they squirt it into their throats or mouths. Yet, there is
still so much other stuff for this part of the body to be
used in. In dry savannah, the vital fact that decides
animals’ lifestyles is water puddles. As the body mass
increases, the amount of water that must be drunk
increases too. So if elephants want to keep
themselves hydrated enough, they have to drink more
than others. Unfortunately it is not a children’s toy. To
sum it up, you need to be really gifted with your
senses, like smelling skills, in order to detect the
nearest if you will survive, just like elephants. They
can spot it from miles away (up to 19 km) if there is a
water puddle or something else.
What is more surprising is that they can use the tip of
their trunks like a hand to grab a branch or whatever
they want to lift. As I said, elephants often use their
trunks to carry water to their mouths, but can they
use it to carry other materials like sand or mud? The
answer is yes, they clearly can. Despite their thick
skins, sunshine and some thought parasites might
still succeed with harming them. It is such a fortune
that animals also do have their natural sunscreen,
which is mud. Elephants can spray mud onto their
backs or sides. They need to do this action unless
they want to get hurt. Thus, the sunlight or harmful
leeches will not be able to hurt. If you think that this is
all the information about their trunks, you are wrong.
The trunk might also be used in order to calm each
other’s emotions down. That is correct, sometimes
some animals (especially mammals) like elephants
can need emotional support. But do these huge
herbivores really have empathy or other feelings?
There is an urban legend that speaks of the way of
elephant tamers. As the first step, they trap a baby
elephant (which is quite cruel). The following day, the
men come in black clothing and start to beat and
torture the baby and leave it there to starve our
defenseless cub. After a couple of days, the same
men would come in white clothes and pretend to be
the savior of the scared, starving, hurt, and exhausted
baby elephant. As the men strengthen the
relationship with the cub, it starts to obey their
requests in order to show them its gratitude. Even if
this technique is not legally binding or has real
grounds, it explains the spiritual world of elephants
well. They have showed us that they are capable of
experiencing many different emotions like anger, grief,
jealousy, sadness, happiness, self awareness,
memory, tool use, competition, playing and even
mimicry. In fact, they have three times more neurons
than people do. They have the biggest brain among
any land creature. Therefore, even if a notable part of
the neurons of elephants are used to control their big,
fleshy bodies, there are still enough neurons to
assume that they have basic intelligence. Another
proof of it is their behaviors. Researchers showed
that elephants actually do mourn. It is clearly known
that elephants have deep relationships within their
groups, families, and relatives. As a member of the
herd dies, it ends up mostly with sadness, grief,
anger, or even depression. At first, they create a
defensive circle around the bones or remaining parts
of the corpse. And then they start moving the bones,
flipping them upside down. They hug, lay their bodies
onto them, and keep the silence for a certain period.
All these behaviors get done just to show their
respect for the last time. The incomprehensibility of
the mourning behavior of elephants has a quiet
vitality. If elephants do mourning ceremonies because
they really have basic intelligence or emotions, it
might mean that they can possibly mentally improve
by the time passes (whether my assumption is
correct or not, it will not change the fact that
elephants have understanding of death).
In wild savannahs, there is no exception or excuse for
anyone to survive, even for newborns. So even a little
cub (which is most probably no older than a few
hours) has to take care of its own.
In the particular reason for this consequence, the
baby elephant must be delivered mostly developed,
which requires a certain time of gestation phase. On
average, the pregnancy process lasts a mother-to-be
elephant approximately 22 months, making it one of
the longest pregnancies to be ever known. Two of the
few reasons are predictable. As it is the same for
most other animals, developing strong and solid
limbs is not a job to be done quickly. Also, as I have
touched on, elephants’ brains are so uniquely
complicated that having enough time is essential.
Another reason could be explained, yet not in this
essay of mine since it is too complicated and really
long for you to read. But if an explanation was
needed, saying elephants do have a different
ovulation process than others would be enough, not
only for you but also for me. As I am ending the last
paragraph of this essay of mine, which I meticulously
wrote, by relying on the power that has been given to
me by no one but myself, I hope the
incomprehensibility of understanding animal beings
of Mother Nature will keep you in curiosity, dear
readers of mine!