The African Elephant

Sofie Bernart G1B

June 2016

Content:

1. introduction.
 1.1. The African elephant.
1.2. Why?
2. Phylum or group.
2.1. What feature of the African elephant makes it belong to the
phylum.
2.2. Other animals of the same phylum.
3. Lifestyle.
3.1. Environment.
3.2. Food.
3.3. social
3.4. Enemies.
4. Some fun facts.
5. Evaluation.
5.1. What did I learned?
5.2. The hardest thing and the easiest thing.
5.3. What did I like the most.

Introduction

African elephants are the world's largest land animals. The biggest can be up to 7.5m long,
3.3m high at the shoulder, and 6 tonnes in weight. They have characteristic long noses, or

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trunks; large, floppy ears; and wide, thick legs. There are two different species the Asian and
the African elephant:

Asian African

Difference between these two are:

The African elephant is significantly larger, with bulls growing up to 4m tall.
The biggest Asian males reach no more than 3.5m
Adult African elephants weigh between 4,000-7,500kg. Asian males weigh
between 3000-6,000kg.
African elephants have fuller, more rounded heads. The top of the head is a
single dome whereas Asian elephants have a twin-domed head with an indent in the
middle.
African ears are like a map of Africa and Asian ears smaller like the shape of
India.

I chose for the african elephant because I think the way they live and their lifestyle is quite
fascinating. Ive always been interested in the elephant so I thought it would be fun to do this
report about it.

Phylum or group.

The African elephant belongs to the animal kingdom , to the Chordata Phylum and The class:
Mammalia. The kingdom is animalia, which means it is multicellular, heterotrophic, and the

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cells lack a cell wall. The african elephant lies in the phylum chordata because it has tissues,
and a coelom. Also the tiger and the orangutan belongs to the Chordata phylum.

Elephant Tiger Orangutan

Lifestyle
Environment And food.
African elephants live in sub-Saharan Africa, the rainforests of Central and West Africa and
the Sahel desert in Mali. They eat things like Grass, leaves, and the bark of bushes and trees
because they are herbivorous.

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Social
When a calf is born, aunts, sisters, and cousins all help to take care for the newborn. In this
way, all the elephants of the herd learn essential lessons in rearing a baby. And since
elephants only give birth once every 5 years, successfully raising their offspring is critical to
their survival. Aside from their ability to learn through watching and mimicking, African
elephants also act like some very human qualities. They care about the wounded and grieve
the deceased. They also can recognize long lost friend of loves.

Enemies

It is difficult for a predator to attack, because elephants live in herds. But, if these predators
get an elephant alone, they do attack. Elephants enjoy spending time in the water and
sometimes baby elephants are attacked by crocodiles.But actually the human is the biggest
enemy of elephants. While there are laws against poaching elephants for their ivory tusks, the
practice continues.

Fun facts

The largest elephant on record was an adult male African elephant. It weighed
about 24,000 pounds and was 13 feet tall at the shoulder!
Elephants can live to be over 70 years old.
Only one mammal cant jump the elephant.
The average weight for an elephant heart is about 27 to 46 pounds!

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 Elephants have a highly developed brain and the largest of all the land
mammals. The brain is 3 or 4 times larger than that of humans although smaller as a
proportion of body weight.
Elephants have a slow pulse rate of 27. For a canary it is 1000!
An elephants skin is an inch thick.
Elephants have poor eyesight but an amazing sense of smell.
Elephants purr like cats do, as a means of communication.
Elephants prefer one tusk over the other, just as people are either left or right-
handed.
Elephants waive their trunks up in the air and from side to side to smell better.
The elephants trunk is able to sense the size, shape and temperature of an
object. An elephant uses its trunk to lift food and suck up water then pour it into its
mouth.
Elephants cry, play, have incredible memories, and laugh.

Evaluation

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I learned much about the classification of the African elephant. I think the classification
between the groups and phylums were the most difficult and their lifestyle was the easiest
because I already knew much about it. And I liked the most to search for some interesting
facts.