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WEIGHT: A full grown Asian Elephant can weigh up to 5,400Kg (11,900lbs)
DIET: Elephants are vegetarian (Herbivore). An adult elephant eats approximately 250 Kg (550Lbs) per day. It’s diet is a mixture of grass, leaves, twigs, bamboo and all kinds of fruit and berries. It loves Bananas, water melon, sugar cane and baby Bamboo shoots. It drinks approximately 150 liters of water per day. The elephant also needs a large salt intake and it gets this from digging in the ground with its trunk where there are salt deposits and from some of the food it eats. The elephants digestive system is very inefficient, only managing to digest about 50% of the food it eats.
HABITAT: The Asian elephant lives mainly in forest areas, particularly in mountainous or hilly terrain. It does live in open Savanna land and marsh areas but prefers the rain forest because of the abundance of food there. There are still elephants living in Burma, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
EYE SIGHT: The Asian elephant has poor vision. Its eyes are very small in comparison to the size of its head and they can see clearly only up to a distance of about 10 meters. It is this poor vision that makes it a bit jumpy when near other animals or people. Any sudden movement catches the eye but because it’s blured the elephant can not make out if there is a threat or not and so it becomes nervous.
HEARING: Elephants have excellent hearing, far superior to that of a human. Although it is assumed that the elephants large ears are the reason for its good hearing, that is not completely true. The large ears are used mainly for cooling, which is why they are constantly flapping them, like a fan. They also use there ears as a warning device, flapping them and banging them against their side to make a loud clapping noise. When you hear this sound, there is no doubt that it is a warning!
SMELL: Elephants have a very good sense of smell, superior to most other animals. It uses this sense of smell to detect the presence of other animals and possible predators, which compensates for its poor eyesight.
TRUNK: An elephants trunk is a truly remarkable appendage. Weighing in at approximately 140 kg (full grown) and as long as 2 meters, this boneless mass of muscle and flesh is controlled by over 100,000 muscles. At the end of the trunk there is a small lip which it uses as a finger. This finger is also sensitive to hot and cold and is used to taste food as well as to determine the texture and size of objects. The trunk, with its thousands of muscles, can push a 600 kg teak log which is why they are used extensively in the forests by logging companies. The trunk is incredibly strong but also sensitive enough to be able to pick up a small coin off the ground. The elephant uses its trunk to breath, smell, eat, drink, lift or pick up objects and even to caress its baby or other elephants. Equally, it can use its trunk to fight or display warning signs by banging it on the ground. An elephants trunk is arguably the most versatile limb of any animal including humans.
Differences Between the Asian & African Elephant:
The Asian Elephant is different from its African counterpart in many ways. It is smaller, with males growing to approximately 9 ft tall and weighing in at 9,000 pounds while the female is slightly smaller at 7 ft and 6,000lbs. In contrast, the African elephant can stand as tall as 12 ft and weigh in at 13,000 Lbs. The Asian elephant has small ears and it has only one finger on the end of its trunk whereas the African elephant has two fingers. It also has two bumps on its forehead as opposed to a much flatter head on the African elephant. Both Male and Female African elephants have tusks which can grow to enormous lengths but the Asian elephant differs here. Most Males grow tusks but they are generally shorter than those of the African elephant, although occasionally you will see an Asian Bull elephant with very long tusks. Although the Female Asian elephant does not grow tusks as such, they do sometimes develop very short stumpy tusks which are called Tushes.
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