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COMMON NAME: Asian Elephant

TYPE: Mammals

DIET: Herbivore

GROUP NAME: Herd

AVERAGE LIFE SPAN: Up to 60 years

SIZE: Height at the shoulder: 6.6 to 9.8 feet

WEIGHT: 2.25 to 5.5 tons

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The elephant is Earth's largest land animal, although the Asian elephant is slightly smaller than its African cousin. Asian elephants can be identified by their smaller, rounded ears. (An African elephant's ears resemble the continent of Africa.). They live in forested regions of India and throughout Southeast Asia, including Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. About a third of Asian elephants live in captivity.

The Asian elephant is classified as Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Its population has declined by an estimated 50 percent over the past 75 years, and there are an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 Asian elephants left in the wild.

Threats to wild Asian elephant populations include habitat loss from deforestation and agricultural development, as well as conflict with humans as elephants seek space and raid crops grown close to their forest habitats.

Most illegal ivory today comes from African elephants, with some 30,000 poached each year. Asian elephants, nonetheless, do still face the threat of poaching for the ivory trade. Only males have tusks, and females have been largely spared. However, a growing trade in elephant skin, used for jewelry, threatens both males and females alike. Young wild elephants are also trafficked from Myanmar into Thailand for the tourism trade. In 2012 the Thai government began cracking down on smuggling.

An elephant's trunk is actually a long nose with many functions. It's used for smelling, breathing, trumpeting, drinking, and grabbing things-especially a potential meal. Elephants are fond of water and enjoy showering by sucking water into their trunks and spraying it over their bodies. The trunk alone contains about 100,000 different muscles. Asian elephants have a fingerlike feature on the end of their trunk that they can use to grab small items. (African elephants have two.)

Elephants eat roots, grasses, fruit, and bark-and they eat a lot of them. An adult elephant can consume up to 300 pounds of food in a single day.

Elephants are crepuscular-they typically sleep during the day and are most active at dawn and dusk.

Elephants are widely viewed as one of Earth's most intelligent animals. They have a highly evolved neocortex, similar to humans, great apes, and some dolphin species. They demonstrate a wide variety of behaviors associated with high intelligence, including compassion, mimicry, grief, altruism, use of tools, and self-awareness.

In the wild, female elephants, called cows, live in close-knit family herds with their young, but adult males, known as bulls, tend to roam on their own. Elephants have a longer pregnancy than any other mammal-almost 22 months. Cows usually give birth to one calf every two to four years. At birth, elephants weigh about 200 pounds and stand about three feet tall.

Asian elephants in captivity

Almost a third of Asian elephants live in captivity, largely in Thailand, India, and Myanmar. Historically, elephants were used in the logging industry, as well as in agriculture and occasionally warfare. Increasingly, they're used in the tourism industry, where many are trained to perform in shows, gives rides, and interact up-close with tourists. The majority are tamed using fear-based methods, including with an instrument called a bullhook-a wooden stick with a sharp metal hook at the end.

Phajaan is the traditional-and brutal- days- or weeks-long process of breaking a young elephant's spirit. It has long been used in Thailand and throughout Southeast Asia to tame wild elephants. Under phajaan, elephants are bound with ropes, confined in tight wooden structures, starved, and beaten repeatedly with bullhooks and other tools until their will is crushed. Elephants born in captivity are still widely trained using bullhooks, but methods vary from handler to handler.using fear-based methods, although severity of training will vary from handler to handler.

The welfare of captive elephants is also difficult to regulate in many parts of the world. Thailand's 3,800 captive elephants are classified as domestic animals, akin to farmed animals like horses and donkeys. Although welfare issues such as tight confinement and isolation, malnutrition, bodily harm, and symptoms of psychological distress have been widely documented among captive elephants in the country, captive elephants in Thailand are classified property, and protections are scant.

Captive Asian elephants are often misinterpreted as domesticated, because they have been kept and trained by humans for thousands of years. However, the majority have historically been captured from the wild and tamed for use by humans. Although then can breed in captivity, like big cats and other wild animals, they are not selectively bred, largely because of their long reproductive cycle. For this reason, there are no domesticated breeds of Asian elephants: They remain wild animals.

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The elephant is Earth's largest land animal, although the Asian elephant is slightly smaller than its African cousin. Asian elephants can be identified by their smaller, rounded ears. (An African elephant's ears resemble the continent of Africa.). They live in forested regions of India and throughout Southeast Asia, including Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos.

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Climate Change is a change in global or regional climate patterns. Asian Elephants need high amounts of fresh water which influences their daily activities, reproduction and migration.

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Some abiotic factors in which the Asian Elephant lives in are wind, water, sunlight, temperature, and climate. Some biotic factors that live in the Asian Elephants habitat are tigers, rhinos, and different kinds of plants like bamboo. Asian elephants are dependent on water so if there was a drought to occur, this could potentially disrupt their way of life.

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Asian Elephants live in Southeast Asia, from India and Borneo. Status Asian elephants are the largest living land animals in Asia, they are also the only specie of the genus Elephas still living....

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They are found in a variety of habitats, ranging from thick jungle to grassy plains. It is generally found in scrub forest, particularly in areas of habitat mosaics containing both grasses and low woody plants and trees. The species feeds during the morning and evening and at night, and rests in the shade during the heat of the day.

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About
The largest land mammal in Asia, this intelligent, highly social animal lives in small groups led by the dominant female, or 'matriarch'.

The elephant plays a crucial role in the forest ecosystem and have been dubbed 'ecosystem engineers'. Commonly referred to as a 'keystone' species, it helps to open up forest clearings and distributes the seeds of trees and shrubs. The Asian elephant and the African elephant are the only surviving members of what was formerly a very diverse order; Proboscidea. The two species are both the only members of the family Elephantidae, and the order Proboscidea, but they are also both the only members of their respective genera. It may be that there are many distinct species among the populations currently defined as subspecies of Asian elephant, which may further highlight the importance to conserve every population. Threatened by poaching for their ivory, and the destruction of the forests in which they live, these magnificent animals are increasingly coming into conflict with people sharing their habitat. Effective management of the species and its environment are required in order to resolve these issues.

EDGE Score

Distribution

Elephantus maximus indicus is the most widely distributed subspecies, currently occurring in fragmented forest patches on the Asian mainland, from India and Nepal, east to Vietnam and Malaysia. Elephantus maximus maximus is restricted to the island of Sri Lanka, and Elephantus maximus sumatrensis and Elephantus maximus borneensis occur on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo respectively

Habitat and Ecology

They are found in a variety of habitats, ranging from thick jungle to grassy plains. It is generally found in scrub forest, particularly in areas of habitat mosaics containing both grasses and low woody plants and trees. They are very social animals, living in family groups consisting of related females and their offspring and are led by the oldest female, the 'matriarch'. The species feeds during the morning and evening and at night, and rests in the shade during the heat of the day. The diet consists mostly of grasses, but bark, roots, stems, and the leaves of trees, vines and shrubs are also eaten. Cultivated crops such as bananas, rice and sugarcane are also favoured foods, bringing the species into conflict with local farmers. The trunk is used extensively for grasping food, as well as for drinking, smelling, touching, vocalising and throwing dust or water over the body.

Find out more

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The largest land mammal in Asia, this intelligent, highly social animal lives in small groups led by the dominant female, or 'matriarch'. The elephant plays a crucial role in the forest ecosystem and have been dubbed 'ecosystem engineers'. Commonly referred to as a 'keystone' species, it helps to open up forest clearings and distributes the seeds of trees and shrubs.

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なかよしアジアゾウ　アマラ＆ヴィドゥラAsian elephant