African Elephants vs Asian Elephants Basic Facts

“Nature’s great masterpiece, an elephant; the only harmless great thing – John Donne”

When considering about elephant weight, Elephants are the biggest breastfeeding herbivorous creatures exist on earth. And creatures which belong to the class “Mammalia” and to the Family “Elephantidae”. Mainly kind of elephants can be divided into two.

  1. African Elephant (Scientific name-Loxodonta Africana)

According to the evidences there are 2 sub species

  • African bush elephants or commonly known as savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana)
  • African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis)
  1. Asian Elephant (Scientific name-Elephas maximus)

The sub species can be divided as follows.

  • Sri Lankan elephants (Elephas maximus maximus)
  • Indian Elephants (Elephas maximus indicus)
  • Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus)

As above mentioned Now let us compare some of the facts in both species.

Elephant weight

When compare with the elephant weight and size, African elephants are huge than Asian elephants in elephant weight. Normally African elephant may have a height of 13 ft and the elephant weight is often between 5000kg to 8000 kg. when considering about elephant weight the largest elephant was found in Africa and it was 10,886 kg in weight. but in Asian elephants, weight is between 4000kg to 6000 kg and height may be between 2.5m to 3m.

However, above height and weight varies with the gender(male/female) which they belong.but at the birth baby elephant weight of both species between 100kg to 150kg in range.

Age

Age of an elephant extend about 70 years.as the human they too have such age.

Life

As above mentioned they are the only herbivorous gigantic animal exist on the earth. they only use plants and leaves as their food. and they are the mammals which have longest pregnancy period. their pregnancy period extends to 1 to 2 years (between 18 to 22 months). Like humans, elephants too show changes both physically and emotionally at their adolescence period. The age of adolescence is between 10 to 17 years. At that period, they separate from their mothers and roam with the elephants with the same age. And at the adolescence age, a thick secretion flows down from temporal glands of male elephants. when this secretion occurs, they are too aggressive and when the secretion stops they become normal as earlier.

 

History

History of this gigantic animal run into million years ago. ancient species of this kind have commonly known as mammoths (Mammutidae). But mammoths are huge than Elephantidae and they had a body covered with wool like hair (so they have known as wooly mammoth). Besides from the elephant weight, size and some signs, basically those species are also like Eliphantidae.but externally, present elephants so close to the species of an American mastodon.

Comparison

African elephant Asian elephant
ears Much bigger and grow above the neck Smaller than African elephants and round shape
head Round and single dome Twin dome head with dented forehead
skin More wrinkled and grey like colour Less wrinkles and brown like colour
tusks Exist in both male and female Exist mostly in male elephants
Toenails Front leg 4 back leg 3 Front leg 5 back leg 4

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