What type of elephant is the largest? Elephants - description, species, habitat, nutrition, behavior, reproduction and facts. About the intelligence of elephants

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There were times when the kings of nature were creatures much larger than us - real prehistoric giants! And one of them still lives on Earth, can you imagine?

We are in website We can’t choose what we would like more - ride a Paraceratherium or fly a Quetzalcoatlus.

Amphicelia

Amphicelia is the largest animal that has ever existed on Earth. These herbivorous dinosaurs lived 145–161 million years ago. One amphicelia vertebra was 2.5 meters long.

Titanoboa

Titanoboa is a close relative of the boa constrictor. But much, much more. Titanoboa lived 58–61 million years ago and reached 13 meters in length. The modern reticulated python can grow to a maximum of 7.5 meters.

Megalodon

Megalodons were apex predators that lived 3–28 million years ago. The megalodon tooth alone barely fits in the hands of an adult. Its length could reach 20 meters, and its weight reached 47 tons. The megalodon's bite force was 10 tons!

Argentavis

Argentavis lived 5–8 million years ago. This is one of the largest birds in the entire history of the Earth. Its wingspan reached almost 7 meters, and it ate rodents.

Bighorn deer

Big-horned (Irish) deer appeared a couple of million years ago. When forests began to encroach on open spaces, big-horned deer became extinct - with their huge (more than 5 meters in span) antlers, they simply could not move among the dense branches.

Giant short-faced bear

The giant short-faced bear (bulldog bear), when erect, reached a height of 3.5–4.5 meters and had incredibly powerful jaws. It was one of the largest predatory mammals that lived on Earth during the Ice Age. Males were significantly larger than females and could reach a weight of 1.5 tons. 14 thousand years ago, bulldog bears became extinct.

Gigantopithecus

Gigantopithecus is the largest ape of all time. They lived about 1 million years ago. It is difficult to draw clear conclusions from the rare remains, but scientists believe that Gigantopithecus was 3–4 meters tall, weighed 300–550 kg and ate mainly bamboo.

Paraceratherium

Paraceratherium (indricotherium) lived 20–30 million years ago. They are relatives of modern rhinoceroses, but they did not have horns. Paraceratherium is one of the largest land mammals that has ever existed. They reached 5 meters in height and weighed up to 20 tons. Despite their impressive appearance, they were not predators and fed on leaves and tree branches.

Elephants are amazing animals. People have admired their intelligence, endurance and wisdom for thousands of years. In addition, the elephant is the largest mammal living on land. These animals have a huge powerful body, large ears and a long trunk, with which you can not only eat, but also bathe or pick up objects. If elephants have tusks, unfortunately, they endlessly attract poachers, hunters for easy money. Usually the weight of the animal does not exceed eight tons, but in history an elephant weighing 12 tons has been recorded. How much does the largest elephant in the world currently weigh?

If we deviate from official facts towards archival data, then the largest elephant would be an animal caught in Angola in the 19th century. It weighed almost 12.5 tons, and both tusks weighed no less than half a hundredweight.

Relatively recently, the title of the world's largest elephant was given to an animal named Yosi. He lives in the Israeli Safari Zoo and is quite old. His age has already exceeded three decades, and he weighs 6000 kg. Yossi’s tail is 100 cm long, his ears are about twenty meters long, and his trunk is two and a half meters long. His height is about four meters.

The elephant is the so-called "elder" of the zoo

Because of his size, he has difficulty pushing through the gate of his pen, he even has to crouch down to do this. Veterinarians agree that such physical exercises do not harm him, but, on the contrary, are beneficial.

The largest animals belong to this species. Compared to its Asian relative, it is much larger, and both males and females have tusks. The African species included the largest and heaviest elephant in history, weighing 12 tons and 7 meters high. Even their individual tusks can weigh up to 200 kilograms. Tusks are needed both for protection from predators (although few dare to attack such giants, except perhaps the old and sick), and for digging the ground and stripping tree bark.

In the wild, they can be found in Zimbabwe, Senegal or Namibia.

Of course, the height and weight of an animal largely depends on nutrition. In good conditions, elephants eat about 1.5 centners of food per day, females eat a little less. Actually, it takes them about 2/3 of the day just to absorb food, only two hours to sleep, and the rest to search for food. During the dry season, they have to walk many kilometers in search of food and drink. The main delicacies of giants are grass and young tree shoots. If possible, they can eat fruit. However, only about half of this amount of food is absorbed.

The habitat of African elephants used to cover the entire African continent, but now the range has been significantly reduced due to human fault. Most of these animals find refuge in the national parks of Congo, Tanzania and Kenya.

This animal is significantly smaller in size than its African counterpart. The largest representative of this species was killed in 1924; its weight exceeded 8 tons. The tusks of the Asian elephant are several times smaller than those of the African elephant, and not all individuals have them.

Initially, these animals lived throughout Southeast Asia, from the Malay Peninsula to Mesopotamia, as well as on some Indonesian islands, the Himalayas and certain areas of China. Now the range is greatly reduced; there are fragments in India, Malaysia, Thailand, Bhutan and some other regions.

In Sri Lanka, there is a subspecies of tuskless elephant, which is called Makhna in the local dialect.

Moreover, biologists have identified as many as five subspecies of the Asian elephant:

• Indian, the males of which have not yet lost their tusks;
• Sri Lankan - has a large head without tusks with spots on the forehead and at the base of the trunk;
• Bornean is a rather small animal, but with very large ears and almost straight tusks;
• Sumatran is one of the smallest elephants, it was even nicknamed “pocket”;
• a separate subspecies living in Sri Lanka. This elephant is quite tall, 30 centimeters taller than the standard Indian one. There are only about 100 of them left.

Elephants usually live for about 6-7 decades. Officially recognized as the longest living elephant from Taiwan, who died in 2003, Lin-Wan. This "veteran" was used by the Chinese from 1934 to 1957 during armed conflicts with the Japanese.

It is worth noting that the elephant is often considered a serious agricultural pest. And not without reason: it happens that whole herds of them destroy plantations of rice, sugar cane or bananas. And, despite their impressive build, these animals run quite quickly, especially in case of panic: then they will crush anyone who gets in their way, and can even demolish a brick wall.

At the time of death, the animal was 86 years old.

Unfortunately, the number of these beautiful animals is steadily declining. The reasons for this are as follows:

• killing by poachers hunting for meat and tusks;
• persecution by villagers trying to protect their lands;
• general environmental degradation associated with human activity;
• Despite their size, elephants quite often die under the wheels of vehicles.

Elephants are one of the few animals capable of conscious emotions. They mourn when their neighbor dies, especially if it is a newborn baby elephant. And they rejoice at good events and even laugh in their own way. If a small cub falls to the ground, an adult (not necessarily a parent) will certainly extend his trunk to him to help him get up. They hug very often using their trunks.

Elephants are the largest land animals. These amazing animals have a powerful trunk, with which they do almost everything. Here are some interesting facts about elephants.

So, the most interesting facts about elephants:

• Like dolphins, elephants can easily communicate with each other using low-frequency signals and noises that the human ear cannot recognize.

• An elephant's heart can weigh up to 30 kg, but because it is so large it only beats about 30 beats per minute.

• September 22 is the official elephant protection day.

• As a rule, elephants live no more than 70 years, although there are also centenarians among them.

• Elephants carry their young for 22 months, the longest gestation of any land creature.

• Elephants cannot jump or run fast, but they are excellent swimmers and feel good in the water.

• The largest elephant in history is considered to be an elephant named Jumbo, who was born in 1861 and died after a collision with a train. At the time of his death he was 24 years old and 4 meters tall.

• There are 2 types of elephants - Asian and African. Although, of course, each species has several more subspecies (African savannah elephant or, for example, Asian bush elephant, etc.)

• As a rule, elephant herds consist mainly of relatives and can number hundreds and sometimes thousands of individuals.

• Elephants are very developed and intelligent animals. They tend to help each other in any situation, to take care when someone gets sick. They also tend to rejoice and generally experience emotions, and even feel sad when someone from their herd dies.

• At the beginning of the 20th century, two public executions of elephants were carried out. In 1903, Topsy the elephant was electrocuted for trampling 3 people. 13 years later, another elephant named Big Mary was executed for a similar crime. They decided to execute her by hanging on a crane.

• Another very wonderful and interesting fact. Ivory is not just a name for elephant tusks. In addition to them, this term refers to hippopotamus tusks and walrus tusks. Mammoth tusks and even sperm whale teeth. It's all ivory.)

• If you look at an elephant's foot using an x-ray, you can see that it walks as if on its toes, i.e. on tiptoes and his heel raised. Thus, the entire load goes on the fingers, and this entire massive leg inside practically consists of fat alone.

• Elephants drink on average 100-200 liters per day, and their trunk can hold up to 8 liters of water.

• The elephant spends most of its time eating (about 16 hours).

The largest elephant in the world The elephant is considered the largest animal living on earth - it boasts an excellent memory and can distinguish simple songs. In general, it lends itself well to training. Did you know that there is an elephant that can paint an entire picture using its own trunk?

What is the biggest elephant? A massive body, huge ears, a long trunk and a pair of tusks, although the latter are not common to everyone. These colossi chose Africa and India as their residence. Elephants often take mud showers - this is how they escape from annoying insects. The mud, when dried, forms a crust, which, like a shell, protects its thick skin. It is officially recorded that the largest elephant weighs 12,000 kg. Usually their weight does not exceed eight thousand kilograms.

There is a great demand for tusks in the jewelry industry - they are used to make original jewelry that is very popular. Poachers during the hunt are not stopped by the fact that elephants are included in the Red Book. In India, elephants are used to facilitate labor - elephants make good vehicles, especially in difficult places. This type of treatment of animals is not practiced on the African peninsula.

Elephants' diet consists of plants; they can chew tree bark. They prefer to eat carrots; they are unlikely to resist an apple. Elephants have a terrible sweet tooth, and are able to stand for as long as they like near the fence of the enclosure in the hope that they will be treated to a sweet delicacy. FROM a large amount of sweets, animals not only get fat, but also become dependent on sweets.

Asian elephants

There are three known species of elephants living in Azi - Sri Lankan, Indian, Sumatran. Of the Sri Lankan individuals, the most prominent is the elephant, 3.5 m high and weighing 5.5 tons. He lives on the island after which he is named. The Indian elephant is not uncommon; it can be found in any Asian country. Weighs no more than 5 tons. The smallest Sumatran is 2.5 m tall and weighs three tons.

African elephant

These are the largest animals on the planet. In nature, there are two types of African elephants - savannah and forest. The first of them can weigh up to eight tons and grow up to four meters, the latter are inferior to them in their parameters - no more than five tons and three meters in height. These are very friendly animals; fights and quarrels rarely occur between relatives. Usually they live in one large herd, take care of the cubs, and do not abandon the sick in trouble. During mating, due to increased testosterone levels, elephants can show aggression, and only during this period can one elephant injure another representative of its genus. Relations with females are tender - having looked after a couple, the elephants move a short distance from the herd and there, far from prying eyes, they indulge in mutual caresses.

Until the baby elephants are five years old, they are under the tireless attention of their mother; upon reaching 15 years old, the elephant becomes an adult. In the savannah, young elephants are in danger - lions. One of the largest elephants is capable of eating 100 kg of grass - often these good-natured creatures cause the death of bushes and trees. Due to the destruction of green spaces, shooting of these large animals was allowed. The average life age of an African giant is 60-70 years. Unlike their Indian relatives, African dogs are much less amenable to training.

Yossi the Elephant

The largest elephant in the world lives in the Safari Zoo, located in Israel. He has reached a very respectable age - he is 32 years old, but continues to grow and can hardly squeeze through the gate leading to the yard - in order to overcome it, the elephant has to crouch - this is the only way he can go for a walk. Experts believe that this kind of exercise only benefits the animal. An elephant named Yossi became the tallest elephant ever to live in captivity. Now his height is 3.7 m. His weight is 6 tons, the elephant’s tail is 1 meter, the trunk is 2.5 meters, ears = 1.2 meters. According to assumptions, the reasons for growth lie in genes. An important factor is nutritious food.

Since ancient times, people have learned to use elephants for heavy work - transporting heavy loads and people. They repeatedly took part in bloody battles. But you should not put an unbearable burden on an elephant - an elephant is not omnipotent and is not capable of lifting a load that is more than a quarter of its weight.

Ecology

It is extremely tempting to give the title of the world's most intriguing animal to one of the great apes. Chimpanzees have much more in common with us, and if nature gave them one more chromosome, they could give up bananas and pick up cubes.

But below we'll look at species that are a little more difficult to humanize (but hardly impossible, given Dumbo's incredible mid-air turn). The elephant is the largest land animal on our planet. The most massive elephant in human history weighed 26,000 pounds. The list below highlights the lives and strange deaths of some of the most famous elephants to walk the earth.

10. Abul Abbas

In 797, Harun al-Rashid, the Caliph of Baghdad, gave Charlemagne, the King of the Franks and the Roman Emperor a clock inside which was constructed of a bird that chirped after each passing hour. He also gave him an Asian elephant. While one must assume that Charlemagne was fascinated by the cuckoo clock, the pachyderm was apparently just as impressed.

Unfortunately, very little reliable information about Charlemagne has been preserved in history, and the same is true with references to Abul Abbas. It is known, for example, that the elephant was used in the battle against the Danes. In 810, when the elephant was over forty years old, he died of pneumonia, which he contracted during one of his frequent baths in the Rhine. Naturally, exotic animal veterinarians were a rarity at that time.

9. Old Bat

On April 13, 1796, the second elephant in the life of the continent arrived in America on a private armed ship. Oddly enough, an entry about an elephant crossing the border was made in a regular logbook by a certain Nathaniel Hathorne. The elephant, named Old Bat, was put on public display in the early 1800s.

After some time, it was purchased by a farmer named Hachaliah Bailey for use on his farm. But he soon realized that he could earn much more money by traveling with an elephant around the country than by having it pull a plow on a farm. He organized a traveling menagerie and made the main bet on the elephant.

Admission to the show for one family cost one coin or two gallons of rum. Bailey states that Old Beth was killed on July 24, 1816, during one of his tours by a farmer who believed it was sinful for the poor to waste their limited funds on such trifles as the circus.

8-7. Castor and Pollux

Paris, despite its deep cultural heritage, has faced a great deal of unrest over the years, in fact, 1870 was one of the darkest periods in the city's history. German troops then surrounded the capital of France, Paris was blocked and besieged.

Since the French were denied outside access to food supplies, they began to subsist on whatever animals were at hand. Their menu included dogs in tomato sauce and cats with mushrooms. Next they got to the animals in the zoo. Castor and Pollux, two elephants, were among the first. Named after the twins, they were sold to local executioners.

The wealthy English politician and writer Henry Du Pre Labouchere tried the “delicacy” and commented on what he ate as follows: “Yesterday I dined on part of Pollux. Pollux and his brother Castor are two elephants that were killed. It was tough and very fatty meat, I do not recommend that English families eat it while they can eat beef or lamb."

6. Jumbo

Perhaps the most famous elephant to ever exist was Jumbo, a huge African specimen captured in Ethiopia in 1869. He spent several years at the London Zoo, but was eventually sold to showman Barnum in 1882 for $10,000.

Jumbo, whose name later became the most common synonym for "big", got his nickname from the Swahili word "Jambo" (meaning "hello") or "Jumbo" ("chief"). He was in fact exceptionally huge, standing at least 12 feet tall.

On September 15, 1885, the circus intended to travel to Ontario, Canada. Jumbo and a little elephant named Tom Thumb were heading to their paddock when suddenly an unexpected train began to pull into the station. The baby elephant “caught” a glancing blow and broke his leg, but Jumbo suffered much more severely, his skull was crushed. In the last moments of the elephant's life, his trainer knelt down and cried like a child, holding Jumbo's trunk in his hands.

After his death, it was found that the stomach of everyone’s favorite elephant was simply littered with coins, keys, various rivets and even whistles. His skeleton was donated to the Museum of Natural History in New York, and his heart was sold to Cornell University. For several years after his death, Barnum took his effigy with him on tour. In 1889, he finally decided to say goodbye to Jumbo and donated his stuffed animal to Tufts University, of which he later became the mascot.

5. Topsy

Any exploration of Brooklyn's Coney Island must include the sad tale of Topsy's encounter with the self-serving wizard Thomas Edison. Topsy was an attraction at the Forepaugh Circus and was often severely bullied. There is a known case when they tried to feed her with a lit cigarette. Topsy was later sentenced to death in the most murderous manner possible.

The great inventor Thomas Edison spent his entire life trying to prove that his direct current model was more efficient and safer than the alternating current model. Edison, being a shrewd if somewhat ruthless businessman, decided that the best way to debunk alternating current technology was to demonstrate how electricity worked on a defenseless animal.

Surely, if he could show the American public that alternating current was sufficient to kill such a huge beast, no reasonable person would risk the safety of his family to use it.

Shortly before the "performance" he began working with Topsy, feeding her carrots with the addition of 460 grams of potassium cyanide. They then tied metal discs to her legs and hit her with 6,600 volts of force. About 1,500 people watched this spectacle, and Topsy died within seconds. Edison ultimately lost the “electric war,” however, the incident with Topsy brought him unprecedented popularity, because the film recording the death of the animal was shown in cinemas around the world for a long time.

4. Maria

Maria was a five-ton Asian elephant who competed in the Sparks World Famous circus show. Her death came in the person of Walter Eldridge, a new employee of the circus company, in September 1916. When he first approached her, she picked him up with her trunk and slammed his head against the wall several times, crushing him completely. Seeking justice, the local blacksmith decided that Maria should pay for what she had done.

However, if you have a big gun and a big target, shooting an elephant is a pretty bad idea. The several dozen bullets he fired at Maria did practically no harm to her, then he decided that she should be hanged. A crowd of 2,500 people, many of them children, gathered to watch the seemingly unprecedented spectacle. The chain looped and the industrial crane car lifted her up, but someone forgot to release her ankles from the chains, it was a terrible moment as the elephant hung in agony.

Witnesses say they could hear the tendons in her ankles tearing. The chain on her neck could not stand it, she fell to the ground and broke her hips. The next attempt was more successful. Photos of Mary suspended in the air have survived decades, and although looking at them today you might think they were Photoshopped, in fact, they are quite real.

3. Black Diamond

The huge Indian elephant, weighing about 18 tons, belonged to the Al G. Barnes circus. He was very naughty, so he was kept chained to the elephant to calm him down while being shown to the public. On October 12, 1929, in Texas, he once again decided to “show character” by wounding his former trainer and killing a woman.

When they finally managed to calm him down, the circus decided that he was too dangerous to take part in the show in the future. At first they tried to poison him, however, the elephant turned out to be overly perceptive. Black Diamond was shot by Hans Nagel, a zoo guard, but at least 60 bullets had to be fired at him before he collapsed to the ground.

2. Hanno

Pope Leo X received Hanno as a gift during his coronation from King Manuel I of Portugal. The Pope loved his pet very much and often showed him to those who wished. Hanno was a white elephant with a pink tint, and to this day animals of this color are considered sacred in Southeast Asian culture.

Two years later, Hanno suddenly became ill. Again, due to the poor understanding of medicine at the time, the elephant was fed a laxative containing gold particles and died on June 8, 1516. The Pope's heart was broken.

1. Tyke

By 1994, technological media were sufficiently advanced to record the elephant's rampage for posterity. Indeed, several video cameras were running on August 20 during the Hawthorn Circus performance. During the show, a 20-year-old elephant named Tyke, known for her restless character, to put it mildly, threw a tantrum.

In front of hundreds of horrified witnesses, she killed her trainer, Allen Campbell, and then went on a rampage through the city streets. The horrified crowd quickly dispersed, leaving several people with varying degrees of injuries. Freed from the nets, dressed in a bright red headdress, Tyke stormed the streets of the city.

A man named Steve Hirano tried to put an end to the riot by closing the parking gate, but this did not stop the furious elephant. Steve's life was saved by the police, who began shooting into the air to scare her. However, the restless elephant had to be calmed down only by emptying all the clips into her.

After more than 80 bullets, Tyke finally gave up. She fell onto the road and died from massive damage to her nervous system and a cerebral hemorrhage. Surely many of you have seen footage from the scene, it is truly a shocking sight.