Lessons in longevity from naked mole rats and bowhead whales
Researchers at Nanjing Normal University, China, have investigated the genetic underpinnings of mammalian longevity in search of new strategies to extend human lifespan.
Researchers at Nanjing Normal University, China, have investigated the genetic underpinnings of mammalian longevity in search of new strategies to extend human lifespan.
Traces of sex hormones extracted from a woolly mammoth's tusk provide the first direct evidence that adult males experienced musth, a testosterone-driven episode of heightened aggression against rival males, according to ...
Plants & Animals
May 3, 2023
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More than 3 million square kilometers of the Asian elephant's historic habitat range has been lost in just three centuries, a new report from an international scientific team led by a University of California San Diego researcher ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 27, 2023
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For the first time, scientists have recorded brain activity in a free-ranging, wild marine mammal, revealing the sleep habits of elephant seals during the months they spend at sea.
Plants & Animals
Apr 20, 2023
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Elephants like to eat bananas, but they don't usually peel them first in the way humans do. A new report published in the journal Current Biology on April 10, however, shows that one very special Asian elephant named Pang ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 10, 2023
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A team of researchers at the Indian Institute of Science, has analyzed YouTube videos captured by amateur elephant enthusiasts to learn more about how the animals respond when one of their herd members dies. Their paper is ...
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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Elephants and their forebears were pushed into wipeout by waves of extreme global environmental change, rather than overhunting by early humans, according to new research.
Ecology
Jul 1, 2021
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Many wildlife species are threatened by shrinking habitat. But according to new research, the potential range of African elephants could be more than five times larger than its current extent.
Plants & Animals
Apr 1, 2021
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Every year in May, female elephant seals leave the beaches in California where they gave birth, nursed young, and molted, to embark on a seven-month foraging migration across the North Pacific Ocean. There is danger in the ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 17, 2021
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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