While I saw lots of elephants on the game drives, I never grew tired of them. They are magnificent creatures, very big and ambling when moving. In fact, it is said that elephants are incapable of actually running. There are two species – the Asian and the African – and obviously we saw the African which is the bigger of the two. The male African elephant is the largest land based animal, ranging from 10 to 13 feet in height and 9,000-15,000 pounds in weight. Yet as large as they are, when seen in the wild, they seem to fit right in.
Most of the elephants we see are in groups, which mean they are females with their calves, most of the females related to each other. And there is a leader – a matriarch who is often the oldest cow. Elephant groups – sometimes called a herd – are often found around bodies of water. There was a pond near our camp where this herd of elephants was. The first photo shows just how close they were to camp, since this photo was taken from camp. In fact, this was the morning when we came back to camp and several of us were told that we couldn’t yet go to our tent since there was an elephant in the way.
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| Elephants Viewed from Camp |
And a bit closer-up shot.
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| Closeup of Elephants from Camp |
Another name for a group of elephants is a parade and this parade seems very well named.
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| A Parade of Elephants |
They are crossing the road in Botswana as we are on our way to Chobe National Park. (Insert appropriate joke about why did the elephant cross the road here.)
The nice looking creature shows several things about an elephant.
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| Elephants Showing Important Features |
One thing they are known for is the trunk which is a fusion of the nose and upper lip which takes place in utero. The trunk contains up to 150,000 separate clusters of muscle fibers – or so I’ve been told; I haven’t counted them and recommend that you don’t bother either. There is little fat and no bone in the trunk and one of its purposes, shown here, is grasping objects – in this case some grass the elephant is eating, although the trunk can lift an object up to 750 pounds. Other uses of the trunk include breathing, smelling (resulting in a sense of smell four times better than a bloodhound), touching, and, as we shall see but not hear, sound production.
The second thing this photo shows is the elephant’s large ears . The ears on this elephant are real, not Dumbo-cartoonish. The ears serve a valuable function in addition to hearing. The large expanse of skin allows their use to regulate body temperature and flopping the ears increases the cooling effect. Elephants have excellent hearing especially at low frequencies, much lower than can be heard by ordinary humans, and for long distances.
The third thing this elephant shows is the traditional tusks, which in the African elephant are found in both the male and the female (and normally only the male in the Asian elephant). The tusks, which are incisor teeth on steroids, serve as weapons and tools for both moving things and digging. Elephants typically have a dominant tusk, called the master tusk, which usually is shorter with a rounder tip.
The final thing this elephant shows that I’m going to comment on is its skin – much of the skin of the elephant will have dried mud on it – which the elephant will also spray dirt on. This cools and insulates the elephant, serves as a kind of sunscreen, prevents moisture loss, and protects it from insects.
The next photo shows our elephant probably going to get its mud bath. Note also the birds behind the elephant, probably waiting to feast of insects that may pop up after the elephant disturbs the ground or the water.
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| Elephant About to Enter Mud Followed by Birds |
On one of our game drives we came across, separate from any herd, a mother and calf.
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| Cow with Calf |
We of course stopped and watched them. The mother seemed unperturbed by our presence but the baby eventually told us to get moving and leave it alone.
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| Calf Blasting at Us |
I wish I had my recorder on but you’ll just have to take my word that this relatively small elephant could still make a big trumpeting sound – illustrating another use for the trunk.
I’ve mentioned how elephant herds tend to gather around water and here we can see a rather large herd strung along the Chobe River.
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| Large Herd on Chobe River |
And a smaller part of this herd including two young calves.
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| Part of Herd with Two Calves |
A bit later we see one calf resting in the shade of its mother.
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| Mom Providing Shade |
And if you think this is a cute picture of an elephant family
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| Not an Elephant Family |
you’d be wrong Both of the adults are probably female, since the herd rarely has males in it.
Along the river, some of the elephants are standing in the water, taking advantage of it on this fairly hot day (even though it is winter).
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| Elephants in the River |
And just a little bit further along the river we see an elephant getting a mud bath.
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| Elephant in Mud Bath |
Next up: Elephant videos
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