Wild African elephants may break sleep records for mammals. New data show that they seem to get by just fine on about two hours of shut-eye a night. Much of that snoozing took place while they were standing up. The animals lie down to sleep only once every three to four nights. Trying to figure out how much wild elephants sleep just by watching them 24 hours a day is tricky, especially in the dark. Much of what scientists had known about sleeping elephants came from animals living in captivity, notes Paul Manger. He is a neuroscientist, or brain researcher, at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. In zoos and enclosures, elephants have been recorded snoozing from about three hours to nearly seven during a 24-hour period. Using electronic monitors on …show more content…
The new data seem to now confirm they were right. Manger and his team shared their findings March 1 in PLOS ONE. What they learned Manger and his colleagues implanted activity monitors (similar to Fitbit trackers) in the trunks of two elephants. Both were matriarchs (female leaders) of their herds in the Chobe National Park. It lies in northern Botswana, a nation in southern Africa. The trunk on these animals is “250 pounds of muscle,” Manger says. That’s why, he says, these moms would hardly have noticed the small tracker implants. Trunks, like human hands, are important for exploring the world. Elephants rarely keep them still — unless sleeping. The researchers assumed that a trunk monitor that didn’t move for at least five minutes likely meant its host was asleep. Neck collars helped researchers figure out whether animals were standing up or lying down. The electronic devices tracked the animals over about a month. During that time, the elephants averaged just two hours of sleep a day. What’s more, the elephants were able to skip a night’s sleep without needing extra naps the next
The scientific name for the asian elephant is Elephas Maximus. The length of an Asian elephant is up to 5.5-6.5m, of an adult this includes trunk, head and the body. Asian elephants can live up to 60 years in the wild bit up to 48 years in captivity. Elephants are herbivores this means they only eat plants and vegetables. They spend sixteen hours a day eating and consume about 300-600 pounds of food everyday and drink 40 - 50 gallons of water. Elephants only sleep for two hours a day.Unlike African elephants, where both males and females have tusks, generally only Asian elephant males have ivory tusks some females have small tisks called tushes.
In Virginia Morell’s story, “ Elephants Can Lend a Helping Trunk”, the purpose Morell made was that elephants had a lot of qualities of teamwork. Morell proved her theory by giving the results of her tests or “stages”. The author went with even more purpose by adding a photograph to backup the textual evidence
In determining to appeal to the reader for educative purposes, Yong cites credible sources throughout the text for persuasive motives to analyze the duration of sleep by wild elephants. By adding researchers or
Elephants are largely affected by what they see and conceive, which makes Maggie Nelson’s image flow a theory to
The average African elephant can run up to 15 mph which is as fast as the average cyclist.
Elephants were used to scare other people away. Recent studies have found that elephants had a helpful part when it comes to the army because of their size and speed. In this article Lockie discuss their research. Researchers found this, “War elephants were usually deployed in the center of the line, where the imposing beasts would charge at up to 20 mph toward the enemy. They were also used to carry heavy materials across difficult terrain before tanks and helicopters were an option,” (Lockie, 2015). Researchers also found,
The life-cycle for the African elephant is very particular. Mating and gestation is very particular for African Elephants. African Elephants do not have a specific breeding season, although research has proven that there are more births during times of heavy rainfall. A Females estrus cycle lasts about thirteen to sixteen weeks, ovulation lasts around four days. Male elephants also called bulls, look for female mates when they have entered musth “a period of intense aggressiveness and sexual drive.” For each male it is different when they come into musth at a specific time every year, it usually lasts about six to twelve weeks. After a gestation period of 22 months females give birth to a single calf. On average female elephants give birth to one calf every four to nine years.
African elephants are the largest land animal on the Earth and are this size to better withstand difficult periods of time and be able to sustain themselves on a diet of coarse vegetation (1). With a large body mass however there are problems such as body temperature regulation and excessive weight. To solve for heat regulation, the elephants have evolved to have large, thin ears that when flapped the blood is drawn to the ears and heat is dispersed from the thin membranes (4). This coupled with the mud put on the skin is a very effective aid in keeping the body cool (4). In order to distribute and support the weight of the body the elephants have a cushion of fat and other tissues in the heel of their foot (10). Because of this cushion, the bones of the toes are angled upwards so that in appearance, it seems the elephants are walking on their tiptoes (10). One of the most important anatomical that an elephant possesses is the trunk. The many uses of the trunk include smelling, grabbing, breathing and social interactions amongst others of their kind (4). Close in proximity to the trunk are the tusks that mainly serve the purposes of fighting and digging (4). As for sexual adaptations the males are larger in body mass and have intra-abdominal testes (1). The female elephants are pregnant for twenty-two months, allowing the
In the old days when the nation was not occupied with wars, elephants became the use of beast of burden. With their great size, enormous power and talent, elephants were capable as best carrier for heavy matters and human’s transportation. Not long ago, elephants are used for the forest work where machines are not determined as best equipments. The labor of elephants is preferred as they would not devastate even small crops. In fact, they were required years of training start from the age of 4 and were trained by two mahouts for about twenty years, and then put to work in the timber industry. Working elephants have a career of about 50 years and then set free as their retirement at the age of 61. Their daily tasks were the extraction of heavy teak logs, haul logs, carrier and mountaineer. The working elephant is capable of lifting up 700 kilograms of log with tusks and dragging the load of 1.5 tons. Elephants have work schedule and future career just like we
African elephants, weighing up to 6.6 tons and measuring up to 10 feet from their shoulder to their back, they are the largest land mammal on earth. They posses a trunk, like a combination of the upper lip and nose, and it has many uses. The tip of the trunk has two extensions, which are used as fingers to help move and pick things up. Elephants large ears serve many uses as well. They help radiate heat, and they can be used to communicate. By flapping their ears, they can signify aggression or joy. With their big ears, like a conjunction of the soles their feet and their trunk, they can hear other elephants from over 2 miles away. Under ideal conditions, an elephant's range of hearing can increase to over 6
The trunk of an elephant is about six feet long, one foot wide, and has more than 150,000 muscle bands. Elephants are born oblivious of how to use their trunks, but once they learn they start picking up objects either to the left or right. Since elephants evolved and now have a much smaller neck, their trunk is much longer and it helps in the process of feeding. About 80% of an elephant’s day is spent eating plants, branches, fruit, and tree bark. The tusks and trunk help aid in the process of breaking down large plants and tree bark to make it easier for the mouth. Elephants can stretch their trunks to reach objects 20 feet of the ground, which in fact has helped their feeding process a great deal. In the
3. Background: My overall background the Asian Elephant is very limited. I know that they come from Asian and many were hunter for their tusks. You can find a few Asian Elephants at the local zoos and there is always controversy on elephants and the circus. There have laws put in place to make it illegal to hunt elephants for their skin and their tusks but I don’t know how strict that law. I know some hunters who have a license to hunt in Asian and he has trophies of lions, zebras, hippos and
The average lifespan of a wild elephant is anywhere from sixty to seventy years old. Because of chronic health problems such as tuberculosis, arthritis, and foot abscesses, captive elephants are lucky if they live forty years. The oldest captive elephant, Peaches, died at the age of fifty-five in 2005 at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Furthermore, attempting the breed captive elephants has been highly unsuccessful. Of the five elephants born in 2003, three of them died within the first twelve months.
After five years of rearing the young elephants, the mother gives birth to a new infant weaning the now adolescent calf at the same time. The subspecies of the elephants are African and Asian. In Africa there is two different species, the African bush elephant, and the African forest elephant. In Asia they just have the Asian elephant. In the early times of 2000 b.c. elephants because of the size they were they helped build. Many experts believe that the mammoth which is now
In the South African Journal of Wildlife Research, they analyzed the movements of the Loxodonta Africana during the day in South Africa. Duffy and colleagues (Duffy et al,2011) explains how male elephants move quicker than females when alone, but when in a group the females are much faster. When the temperature is extremely high, the elephants in the savanna try not to move in any direction