Elephant Ears | Elephant Feet | Elephant Skin | Elephant Senses
Elephant Ears
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The African elephant has ears that are at least three time the size of the Asian elephant's ears. The African elephant uses it's ears as signaling organs.
Ears are also used to regulate body temperature and are used as a protective feature in the African elephant to ward off potential threats.
Each elephant's ear is unique and different to any other elephant's ear. They are used just like fingerprints on a human as a type of identification.
The ears serve several important functions in the elephant. When a threat is perceived by the elephant, the ears are spread wide on each side of the head, which produces a huge frontal area.
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Elephant ears are very important. They help in regulating the elephant's body temperature. Temperature control for an elephant is a constant problem.
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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.
So elephants use their ears to perform this function. When an elephant flaps its ears, it can lower their blood temperature by 50 degrees centigrade (9 degrees fahrenheit).
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Both the African and Asian elephants use their ears for this purpose although it is more effective in the African elephant due to the larger ears.
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The wider surface area of outer ear tissue on the African elephant's ears consists of a vast network of capillaries and veins.
Hot blood in the arteries are filtered through these and cooler blood is returned to the elephant's body.
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It is not uncommon to see an elephant facing down on a windy day with its ears extended to allow the cool wind to blow across the hot arteries. The physical structure of the elephant ear is simply a sheet of cartilage covered by thin skin.
Another amazing function of the elephant ear is its 'infra sound capabilities'. This is used for long range communication between the elephants. Elephant ears are extremely sensitive and studies have proved that elephants can communicate over great distances with each other. Elephants can use this communication which is unhearing to human ears to warn of impending dangers in the far distance.
So do not forget, if you have the opportunity to ever touch the ears of an elephant, be very careful as they are very soft and sensitive.
Elephant Feet
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Elephants feet are unique and very interesting. They are quite different from other animal feet. An elephant's foot is designed in such a way that elephants actually walk on the tips of their toes. Because of the way it walks, elephants are also known as 'Digitigrades' and belong to a group of animals that also includes horses, cattle, sheep, camels and rhinos.
All elephants do not have the same number of toes on each foot. The African elephants have four toes on their front feet and three toes on their back feet. Asian elephants on the other hand, have five on the front and four at the back.
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Elephants toes are buried inside of the flesh of the foot and not all toes have toenails. An elephants foot generally measures 40 - 50 centimetres in length and width and has a circumference of about 1.34 metres.
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The sole of an elephant's foot is made of a tough, fatty connective tissue which acts like a spongy shock absorber and allows the elephant to move about silently. |
The sole of the foot is also ridged and pitted which gives the elephant stability when walking over a variety of terrains. Its design prevents the elephant from slipping on smooth surfaces such as ice and snow. The reason that elephants can walk so quietly is in part due to the 'elastic spongy cushion' on the bottom of the foot smothering any objects beneath itself. This causes most noises (including the cracking of sticks and twigs) to be muffled.
The fore feet of an elephant have a circular shape whereas the back feet are a more oval shape. The footprint of an elephant can tell you a few things about that particular elephant. For example, elongated oval footprints usually indicates that they belong to a male elephant, whereas a more rounded footprint indicates a female elephant. Male elephants tend to leave double footprints as their rear leg falls slightly to the side of their front leg. Females tend to walk more precisely in the same spot with both legs.
The footprint can also tell you what age the elephant might be. Younger elephants leave a more crisp and defined footprint. Older elephants leave a more undefined footprint because of smoother ridges and worn heels. The height of the elephant can also be determined by its footprint. Twice the circumference of the footprint suggests how tall the elephant is to the height of its shoulder. Elephants footprints can play a beneficial role for other animals. Their large, deep prints create holes in which water can be collected in providing water holes for small animals, roots can be dug up from the ground and navigation on difficult terrain can be made easier.
The structure of the foot allows an elephant to walk in deep mud without difficulty, because when it is being withdrawn the circumference becomes smaller which in turn reduces the suction preventing the elephant from being drawn deeper into the mud.
Elephant Skin
Although elephants belong to the Pachyderm species which means 'thick-skinned' animals, they actually have very thin skin except in certain places such as the back and the sides where it is about 2 - 3 centimetres thick. The thinnest parts of skin are behind their ears, around their eyes, on the chest, abdomen and shoulders. On these parts, their skin is as thin as paper.
Skin provides a protective function for all animals, however, there are some unique characteristics about the elephants skin. Elephants skin is very sensitive to the sun. Elephant calves are constantly shadowed by their mothers to avoid sunburn.
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Elephants naturally love water, however, one of the reasons they enjoy wallowing in mud, lakes and rivers is to keep cool when it is very hot.
Elephants also use their trunks to draw up cool water and squirt it over their backs and heads to wet the skin most exposed to the sunlight. The absence of sweat glands is also another important reason for elephants to spend a lot of time in water and mud.
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An elephants skin is so sensitive and rich in nerves that it can detect even the smallest fly landing upon it. As we all know, elephants skin is very wrinkly. These wrinkles have their purpose too. They help the elephant in controlling its body temperature and keeping itself cool. |
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Wrinkles increase the surface area of the skin so when the elephant bathes in water, there is more skin to wet. When the elephant comes out of the water, the cracks and crevices of the wrinkles trap the water and because it takes longer to evaporate in the heat it keeps the elephants skin moist longer than it would if it had smooth skin.
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Skin structure on an elephant can also distinguish whether they are Asian or African. Asian elephants have finer skin than African elephants and it is sometimes colourless except for some 'white spots' around the ears and forehead.
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The natural skin colour of the African elephant is greyish black, but all elephant skin colour changes and is determined by the colour of the soil of the land where their habitat is.
Elephants have a habit of throwing mud over their backs and this gives them their apparent colouring.
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Elephant Senses
By better understanding an elephant's view of the world we can become more aware of how amazing these animals really are. As human beings, the impact our senses have on the nature of our experiences such as what we see, hear, smell and touch, play a huge part in determining our world. Likewise, it is important that we recognize the world of an elephant is much different from our world.
For instance, the eyesight of an elephant is not as far reaching as a humans eyesight, however, an elephant's sense of smell is unparalleled. The elephant's acute sense of smell is also used in communication along with its other senses of vision, touch, hearing and the amazing ability to detect vibrations.
An elephant is capable of hearing sound waves well below the human hearing limitation. They communicate using both high and low frequency sounds. Low frequency rumbles are made to warn other elephants at long distance of a current situation whereas high frequency sounds such as trumpeting, barking, snorting and other loud calls are used to communicate to those nearer.
Using their heads, bodies, trunks, ears and tail for communicating is the elephants natural language. Visual communication includes movements of the head, mouth, tusks and trunk. For example, when a female elephant feels threatened, she will make herself appear larger by holding her head as high as she can and spreading her ears wide. Chemical communication is the use of the trunk. The elephant will lift its trunk to smell the air or root around the floor usually searching for urine spots and urine trails.
Tactile communication usually involves the whole body, feet, tail, ears, trunk and tusks and is mostly to do with touch. An elephant will use its tusks to provoke aggression or to lift a baby elephant out of a mud wallow. The rubbing together of ears shows affection. Depending on how the elephant moves and uses its body parts depicts the mood of the animal. Such moods and body movements show if the elephant is angry, happy, anti-predator, parental, excited or sad.
Every observation of the elephant senses shows an insight to world the elephant lives in. It is important to remember that the elephants world is a completely different world from ours based on its sensory experiences.
