AnimalWiki

African Bush Elephant

Loxodonta africana

African Bush Elephant (Loxodonta africana) is a species in the genus Loxodonta, family Elephantidae, order Proboscidea.

Scientific classification

RankTaxon
DomainEukaryota
KingdomAnimalia
PhylumChordata
ClassMammalia
OrderProboscidea
FamilyElephantidae
GenusLoxodonta
SpeciesLoxodonta africana

Description

The African bush elephant is the largest living land animal: bulls stand up to about four metres at the shoulder and can exceed six tonnes. It is distinguished from the African forest elephant by larger, more triangular ears, forward-curving tusks, and a trunk tip with two opposing "fingers" rather than the single one of Asian elephants.

The trunk is a fusion of nose and upper lip containing on the order of 40,000 muscle units, with no bone. It is used for breathing, drinking, smelling, dust-bathing, greeting, fighting and manipulating objects as small as a single blade of grass.

Distribution and habitat

Sub-Saharan Africa, in savanna, woodland, and desert-edge habitats, with the largest populations in southern and eastern Africa. Elephants move over very large ranges and are effective ecosystem engineers: by pushing over trees and digging for water they maintain grassland and create resources other species depend on.

Behaviour

Herds are matriarchal — an old female, her daughters and their offspring. The matriarch's memory of water sources and of past droughts materially affects the survival of the group, which is one of the better-documented cases of accumulated individual knowledge mattering to a wild population. Bulls leave the herd at adolescence and live alone or in loose bachelor groups, entering a periodic hormonal state called musth.

Elephants communicate over kilometres using infrasonic calls below the range of human hearing, and detect some of these vibrations through the ground.

Conservation

Endangered. Ivory poaching remains the principal direct threat, alongside habitat conversion and escalating conflict with farmers as ranges are cut by agriculture and infrastructure.

References