The recent announcement that Fauna & Flora International (FFI) and our partners have recorded over 100 new species in Myanmar in the decade since we began working there caused quite a stir, but that landmark figure doesn't ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 16, 2022
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Elephant seals have helped scientists to demonstrate that fresh water from Antarctic's melting ice shelves slows the processes responsible for the formation of deep-water ocean currents that regulate global temperatures.
Earth Sciences
Aug 24, 2016
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Precisely when mammoths went extinct has fascinated paleontologists for generations, perhaps because their decline coincided with the arrival of people to North and South America.
Paleontology & Fossils
Nov 30, 2022
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African elephants make a specific alarm call in response to the danger of humans, according to a new study of wild elephants in Kenya.
Plants & Animals
Mar 7, 2014
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(Phys.org)—A team of researchers working at Harvard University has taken yet another step towards bringing to life a reasonable facsimile of a woolly mammoth—a large, hairy elephant-like beast that went extinct approximately ...
(PhysOrg.com) -- Because brown bears are so reclusive, not to mention dangerous to be around, not a lot is really known about their brain power. This is actually rather odd because bears have the largest brains for their ...
A hefty set of tusks is usually an advantage for elephants, allowing them to dig for water, strip bark for food and joust with other elephants. But during episodes of intense ivory poaching, those big incisors become a liability.
Plants & Animals
Oct 21, 2021
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Mammoths, which went extinct about 10,000 years ago, may once again walk the Earth.
Biotechnology
Jan 16, 2011
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Does my dog only think of eating, sleeping and chasing squirrels? Does my girlfriend's cat really have the capacity to plot my accidental death? Are cows just walking hamburgers and pigeons intent on world domination?
Plants & Animals
Oct 29, 2013
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New research reveals that a species of giant elephant that lived 1.5 million to 100,000 years ago - ranging across Eurasia before it went extinct - is more closely related to today's African forest elephant than the forest ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 6, 2017
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Elephants are large land mammals of the order Proboscidea and the family Elephantidae. There are three living species: the African Bush Elephant, the African Forest Elephant and the Asian Elephant (also known as the Indian Elephant). Other species have become extinct since the last ice age, the Mammoths, dwarf forms of which may have survived as late as 2,000 BC, being the best-known of these. They were once classified along with other thick skinned animals in a now invalid order, Pachydermata.
Elephants are the largest land animals. The elephant's gestation period is 22 months, the longest of any land animal. At birth it is common for an elephant calf to weigh 120 kilograms (260 lb). They typically live for 50 to 70 years, but the oldest recorded elephant lived for 82 years. The largest elephant ever recorded was shot in Angola in 1956. This male weighed about 12,000 kilograms (26,000 lb), with a shoulder height of 4.2 metres (14 ft), a metre (yard) taller than the average male African elephant. The smallest elephants, about the size of a calf or a large pig, were a prehistoric species that lived on the island of Crete during the Pleistocene epoch.
The elephant has appeared in cultures across the world. They are a symbol of wisdom in Asian cultures and are famed for their memory and intelligence, where they are thought to be on par with cetaceans and hominids. Aristotle once said the elephant was "the beast which passeth all others in wit and mind". The word "elephant" has its origins in the Greek ἐλέφας, meaning "ivory" or "elephant".
Healthy adult elephants have no natural predators, although lions may take calves or weak individuals. They are, however, increasingly threatened by human intrusion and poaching. Once numbering in the millions, the African elephant population has dwindled to between 470,000 and 690,000 individuals according to a March 2007 estimate. While the elephant is a protected species worldwide, with restrictions in place on capture, domestic use, and trade in products such as ivory, CITES reopening of "one time" ivory stock sales, has resulted in increased poaching. Certain African nations report a decrease of their elephant populations by as much as two-thirds, and populations in certain protected areas are in danger of being eliminated Since recent poaching has increased by as much as 45%, the current population is unknown (2008).
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
