What is the function of the backbone in an elephant?
The backbone is the mechanism by which soft tissues are 'hung', consisting of sturdy vertebrae with high, strong neural spines in the chest (thoracic) area. Similar to Man, the elephant has an almost vertical pelvis that is greatly expanded.
What is the bone structure of an elephant?
The long bones of the elephant's limbs are spongy and made up of small, needle-like pieces of bone arranged like a honeycomb (instead of hollow parts that contain bone marrow). This feature strengthens the bones while still allowing for blood cell production.
What is the difference between front and back legs of elephant?
The back legs are slightly longer than the front legs, although the high shoulder makes the front limbs look longer. Unlike most four-legged mammals, an elephant's front leg joints bend backward, like a human’s wrist. The elephant’s wrist is smaller than the foot with both being round shape.
How many vertebrae does an elephant have?
The backbone is the mechanism by which soft tissues are 'hung', consisting of sturdy vertebrae with high, strong neural spines in the chest (thoracic) area. Similar to Man, the elephant has an almost vertical pelvis that is greatly expanded. As in all mammals, elephants have seven neck vertebrae.
Is an elephant a vertebrate or invertebrate?
Elephants are the world's largest land mammal. They're warm-blooded vertebrates that nurse their young with milk produced by mammary glands, and they're hairy creatures (the hairs are just small and sparse, so they don't look furry). That means they fulfil all the requirements to be mammals.
Do elephants have spongy bones?
Also, the majority of the marrow cavities in the leg bones have been replaced with a spongy bone aiding in the legs great strength and relatively light weight. As in all mammals, elephants have seven neck vertebrae.
How strong is an elephant spine?
The elephant is actually only carrying what would be for a human the equivalent of 2.1kg on her back. Hardly strenuous considering that the average weight of a woman's handbag is between 2.35 and 10kg! An elephant can carry up to 25%2 of its body weight without causing any discomfort or pressure to its body or spine.
What type of skeleton does an elephant have?
Elephants do not have an exoskeleton, they have an endoskeleton just as humans. This is because the skeleton of an elephant lies inside the body...
Do elephants have hollow bones?
All bones have marrow of some kind. But elephants were thought to be so massive that hollow bones with a medullary cavity (like ours) occupied by a fat-rich yellow marrow “sausage” couldn't support their weight.
Do elephants eat their own poop?
Many baby animals — including elephant and hippo calves — eat feces from their mothers or fellow herd members when they're transitioning from drinking their mother's milk to eating solid foods, Amaral said.
Why does an elephant have a backbone?
An elephant is built to lift weight with its trunk – and not to carry people on its back. The vertebrae of the elephant's backbone point upwards just like humans. Instead of round and smooth discs, elephants have sharp, bony protrusions that extend upwards from their spine.
Do elephants have weak backs?
The weight of carrying tourists and a trainer on an elephant's back is grueling - and can cause severe damage to an elephant's spine. "Instead of smooth, round spinal disks, elephants have sharp bony protrusions that extend upwards from their spine," Carol Buckley, president of Elephant Aid International, said.
Can we sit on elephant back?
Although elephants are large and a human is a small per cent of their body weight, elephants are not physically designed to carry people and a howdah (a type of saddle) on their back. You might see many articles that say riding elephants does not hurt the elephants. However, this is false.
Do elephants have bones?
The whole skeleton of the elephant weighs about 16.5% of its total body weight. An adult female Asian elephant is reported to have 282 bones (Shoshani et al. 1982). Weighing on an average 52 kilos, the head, which looks dimensionally massive, is not as heavy as it appears because of the large number of sinuses present.
What are the body parts of an elephant?
Learn these parts of an elephant to enhance your English words about animal parts in English.Eyes. Elephants' eyes are small; because of the position and size of the head and neck, they have limited peripheral vision.Ears. ... Trunk. ... Legs. ... Tusks. ... Toes. ... Tail.
Why can elephants not jump?
In the case of the elephant, in fact, it's impossible. Unlike most mammals, the bones in elephant legs are all pointed downwards, which means they don't have the "spring" required to push off the ground.
How much is a wild elephant worth?
In 1996, Prof Shahid Naeem was part of a team of researchers who set out to value the Earth. Specifically, they were trying to establish
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What are the features of an elephant?
One of the most interesting features of an elephant is its trunk. An elephants trunk is both an upper lip and an extension of the nose with two nostrils running through the whole length. The trunk has more than 40,000 muscles in it which is more than a human has in their whole body.
Where is the brain of an elephant?
Elephants Brain. The brain of the elephant is larger than any other land mammal and is located in the back of the skull well away from the forehead. An elephants brain is about four times the size of a humans brain. (See diagram on the left).
What is the diamond shaped pattern of elephant tusk?
It is the diamond shaped pattern of the elephants tusk which can be distinguished when viewed from a cross-section which gives elephant ivory its distinctive lustre. Elephants are either ‘left-tusked’ or ‘right-tusked’, just like a human being might be ‘left-handed’ or ‘right-handed’.
Why do elephants have a lot of heat?
Because the elephant is such a large bulbous shape and contains large organs, their insides generate a lot of heat, particularly the digestive system. The surface area of an elephant is a lower ratio compared to the elephants volume. Therefore, there is not enough skin area to cope with the heat that needs expelling.
What is the hair on an elephant's head?
The hair on an elephant is thickest on the tail and more visible on the head and back. The hair on the tail can reach a length of up to 100 centimetres. The hair that appears around the eyes and nose have a protection purpose. It helps to keep out particles and germs from invading the body through the ears and nose.
How to tell the age of an elephant?
They are an age indicator – much like the elephants feet, the age of the elephant can be estimated by observing their tusks. The size of an elephants tusks is an inherited characteristic, however, because of ivory hunters, it would be quite rare today to find and elephant whose tusks weigh more than 100 pounds.
How much water does an elephant hold?
An average elephant can hold and store 4 litres of water inside its trunk.
What is the most sensitive part of an elephant's body?
It is highly sensitive everywhere but especially sensitive in the armpits, the groin region, behind the ears and around the eyes .
How many muscles does an elephant trunk have?
Sensory hairs at the end of the trunk can feel an object’s shape, texture, and temperature. An elephant trunk has over 50,000 individual muscles, a complex network of blood vessels and nerves (compared to 600 muscles in the entire human body), a small amount of fat, but no bones or cartilage.
What is the difference between a forest elephant and a savannah elephant?
The forest elephants, found in dense West African forests, have longer, straighter downward-pointing tusks and rounder ears and are darker than the savannah elephant. The forest elephant has five toenails on its front feet and four on its hind feet, like the Asian elephant.
Where do elephants live in Asia?
Sri Lankan elephants inhabit the dry zone of north, east, and southeast Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka has the highest density of elephants in Asia, with a wild population estimated at 7,500. This subspecies is the largest and darkest of the Asian elephants. The Indian elephant is native to mainland Asia.
How long have elephants diverged from their ancestors?
DNA from both types of African elephants, the Asian elephant and the extinct woolly mammoth and mastodon (ancient elephant ancestors) showed that the two African elephant species had diverged genetically more than 3 million years ago.
What is the largest living animal in Africa?
African savanna elephants, also known as African bush elephants, are the largest living land mammal in Africa. They have evolved to twice the size of the forest elephant with large pointed and triangular-shaped ears and outward-curving tusks. They range from South to East Africa.
What are the two species of elephants?
Species: African Elephants. For centuries it was believed there were only two species of elephants–African and Asian. The African elephant was split into subspecies, the forest, and the savanna. Scientists believed the two were the same species with slightly different populations that mingled on the edges of the forest.
Where are elephants found?
The Asian elephant ( Elephas maximus ), also known as the Asiatic elephant, is the only living species of the genus Elephas and is distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, from India in the west, Nepal in the north, Sumatra in the south, and to Borneo in the east.
What is the elephant based on?
Chinese elephant ( E. m. rubridens ), also proposed by Deraniyagala in 1950, was based on a bronze statuette of an elephant. Javan elephant ( E. m. sondaicus ), also proposed by Deraniyagala in 1950, was an illustration of a carving on the Buddhist monument of Borobudur.
What are the names of the elephants?
The following Asian elephants were proposed as extinct subspecies, but are now considered synonymous with the Indian elephant: 1 Syrian elephant ( E. m. asurus ), proposed by Deraniyagala in 1950, was based on Bronze Age illustrations. 2 Chinese elephant ( E. m. rubridens ), also proposed by Deraniyagala in 1950, was based on a bronze statuette of an elephant. 3 Javan elephant ( E. m. sondaicus ), also proposed by Deraniyagala in 1950, was an illustration of a carving on the Buddhist monument of Borobudur.
How tall are elephants?
Length of body and head including trunk is 5.5–6.5 m (18–21 ft) with the tail being 1.2–1.5 m (3.9–4.9 ft) long. The largest bull elephant ever recorded was shot by the Maharajah of Susang in the Garo Hills of Assam, India in 1924, it weighed an estimated 7 t (7.7 short tons), stood 3.43 m (11.3 ft) tall at the shoulder and was 8.06 m (26.4 ft) long from head to tail. There are reports of larger individuals as tall as 3.7 m (12 ft).
Which is smaller, an elephant or an elephant?
In general, the Asian elephant is smaller than the African bush elephant and has the highest body point on the head. The back is convex or level. The ears are small with dorsal borders folded laterally. It has up to 20 pairs of ribs and 34 caudal vertebrae. The feet have more nail-like structures than those of African elephants —five on each forefoot, and four on each hind foot. The forehead has two hemispherical bulges, unlike the flat front of the African elephant.
What is the skin color of an elephant?
Depigmented skin on the forehead and ears of an Asian elephant. Skin colour is usually grey, and may be masked by soil because of dusting and wallowing. Their wrinkled skin is movable and contains many nerve centres. It is smoother than that of African elephants and may be depigmented on the trunk, ears, or neck.
How big is the bull elephant?
The largest bull elephant ever recorded was shot by the Maharajah of Susang in the Garo Hills of Assam, India in 1924, it weighed an estimated 7 t (7.7 short tons), stood 3.43 m (11.3 ft) tall at the shoulder and was 8.06 m (26.4 ft) long from head to tail.
