Happy Friday!
Sorry about the delay in delivery last week. I was indeed in Michigan, wrote Happy Friday on Thursday and tried to send it out that night, but it didn't go anywhere (an ongoing issue with Outlook on my laptop that no one has been able to figure out). By the time it went out on Saturday, I was home. Hoping that that today's will be better timed.
Today is International Save the Elephant Day. I wouldn't normally pay too much attention to this, but I had dual elephant experiences in February that brought elephants into my consciousness. I visited an elephant preservation center while in Jaipur, India in February, complete with beautiful "painted" animals (one needs to dress up for festive occasions) and an elephant ride. Around the same time, I read Elephant Company by Vicki Constantine Croke set in Burma in World War II (I highly recommended it). They say that "an elephant never forgets", but I didn't realize how intelligent they are until I read the book. (This made me wonder why Disney named the 1941 flying elephant character "Dumbo". Disney was inspired to create Dumbo based on Dumbo, The Flying Elephant written by Helen Alberson and Harold Pearl. There is no documentation of Dumbo's IQ, but he was mute; despite this, Dumbo was a symbol of hope, self-acceptance, believing in oneself and triumph.)
Elephants are the largest living land animals and there are only three living species of these proboscideans: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant and the Asian elephant. Their ancestors were mastodons and mammoths. African elephants have round heads, larger ears and concave backs and Asians elephants have the opposite features with either convex or flat backs and twin-domed, "diveted" heads (there are other differences). They can live up to 70 years in the wild and communicate by touch, sight, smell and sound, using infrasound and seismic communication over long distances. And they are both smart and emotional – their intelligence is comparable to primates, and they seem to be concerned for dead and dying elephants.
Elephants' ears (pinnae) are quite thin – 1-2 mm thick in the middle. They contain numerous capillaries which bring warm blood into the ear flaps, releasing excess heat into the air. Flapping the ears back and forth accelerates the release of heat and larger ear surfaces contain more capillaries. African bush elephants, who live in the hottest climates, have the largest ears.
Elephant eyes have no lacrimal (tear) glands or tear ducts. Instead, they have harderian glands in the orbits that secrete fluid (mucous, serous or liquid) to keep the eyes moist. They also have a limited field of vision due to their location in front of the large ear flaps and limited eye mobility. They see well in dim light but not bright light.
Of course, one of their most distinctive features is the trunk, a combination of the nose and upper lip, containing up to 150,000 separate muscle bundles, no bone and very little fat. The muscles contract in various directions to produce bending, twisting and longitudinal stretching or retracting – the trunk has almost unlimited flexibility. The trunk can also bend at different points, similar to the human hand. The skin of the trunk is more elastic on the top side and the numerous skin wrinkles enhance its flexibility, The trunk is not only flexible, but also strong enough to lift 770 pounds (350 kg) with the precision to crack a peanut shell without breaking the seed. It can reach, dig, siphon and suck up water to drink or clean itself. It can even be used as a snorkel underwater. Elephants need the trunk for its sense of smell and it is also very sensitive to touch. Damage to the trunk can limit an elephant's survival.
The tusks are the second incisors in the upper jaw, replacing the deciduous milk teeth at 6-12 months of age and growing at a rate of about 7 inches per year. The ivory is the dentine of the tusk which functions in digging, debarking, marking, moving objects and fighting. Similarly to human handedness, elephants have a dominant and nondominant tusk. Depending on the species, both males and females can have tusks.
Their skin is tough but sensitive, requiring mud baths to protect against burning and insect bites. After the mud bath, they often use their trunk to spray dust onto their bodies to form a protective crust. Their only sweat glands are between their toes, so they have hard time releasing heat.
Elephants are among the smartest animals, and the elephant brain is almost three times the size of the human brain although it is proportionally smaller than ours. Their temporal lobes are extremely large, and they have a well-developed cerebrum and cerebellum. They can use tools. Their bladders can store up to 18 liters of urine. They eat up to 660 pounds (300 kg) of food and drink daily and are vegetarian. Because of their size, they can mow down the landscape and need to stay close to water. Elephant Company talked about musth, basically male elephant "heat". Elephants typically enter musth at age 15 years. During musth, there is a discharge of fluid down the temporal glands that runs down the side of the bull's face. They become very agitated and aggressive during this time. On the female side, gestation is 1.5-2 years followed by 4 years in which the female will not give birth. The female gives birth to one, and rarely two, offspring. It takes two years before the calf is fully independent in its activities of daily living.
All three species of elephants are endangered, mostly because of the ivory trade. African bush elephants and Asian elephants are endangered, and African forest elephants are critically endangered (the highest level) on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, which inventories conservation status and extinction risk for biological species. In 1979, the African elephant population was about 1.3 million, but only 600,000 remained in 1989. Although ivory traders denied it (and blamed in on habitat loss), 75,000 African elephants were illegally killed during that decade for ivory. In addition to poaching, habitat destruction, fencing (disrupting migration), and their use in war and as labor animals contribute to their demise. Although there was a worldwide ban on ivory sales in 1989, poaching and illegal trade still exist. It is illegal to buy ivory in the U.S. but not illegal to own it. For example, if it was acquired prior to 1989 or was inherited, one can keep it. Elephant ivory is the most highly regulated.
Elephants are amazing animals and an important part of many cultures. Let's keep them around!
Have a good weekend,
Deb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FR0qt6Xpeo