The Elephants

By-Bada Jung

Elephants are the biggest animal in the world. And their body is unique, especially their trunk, tusks, and ears which are important parts of the elephants’ body. The trunk is made of more than 40,000 muscles that make the trunk is used in many ways. For example, an elephant uses its trunk to pick up, throw, hold, and push things. Also, the trunk is used for breathing and smelling because actually the trunk is a combination of a nose and a upper lip. But an elephant does not drink water through its trunk like many people think. The trunk is also used to hold water and squirt when the elephants take bath. The trunk holds about 2 gallons of water. Sometimes the trunk is used for baby elephants to keep in touch with their mothers by hanging onto the mothers’ tails.

The elephants’ ears also are useful as the trunk. Because the ears keep an elephant’s body to be cool. African elephants’ ears are much bigger than Asian elephants’ ears. The beneath of skin of the ears, the tiny blood vessels cross the ears. When the blood flows throughout the ears, it releases heat of the skin of the ears. The blood in ears is cooled by flapping the ears. When the blood that was cooled goes throughout the body, the body cools down. That is why African elephants have much larger ears than the Asian elephants. Because Asian elephants live in shady place, and African elephants live in hot place.

• Elephants live within their own herd. The female elephants spend their whole life in herd. But male elephants can’t stay in one herd during their life. Male elephants have to change their herd that is called “bachelor group” when they are 15 or 16 years old. As they get older than that, they live alone. The leader of a herd that is called “matriarch” is female and the leader decides everything about its herd. Usually there are about 20 elephants in a herd. And the members of herd really take care of each other. If one is sick, others nurse the one to be okay. The herd members also find food together, and take bath together. For elephants, being with their herd is much safer than being alone. Because when elephants are together within a herd, enemies such as tiger don’t even approach to them. But an elephant which is alone without its herd is in danger.

• Elephants take bath in mood. The elephants’ skin looks so tough, but actually it is not. It is very sensitive. So taking bath in mood is the way how elephants protect their sensitive skin.

• Elephants do communicate like us, and there are many ways to communicate. The elephants make noises to talk to other elephants. Elephants trumpet when they are angry, excited, and when they get lost from their herd. Elephants produce low and purring sounds when they are content. Elephants also make very low sounds that are too deep to hear for human and that keep for very long time. So elephants use that deep sound when they communicate with others that are far from them. Elephants also greet. They greet by sniffing each other. The elephants use their body to express their mood or feeling. The position of an elephant’s ears, tail, and herd can show how it’s felling. An elephant that is curious lifts its tail and cock its ears. If an elephant smells something exciting, its ears flap back and forth. And if an elephant thinks something dangerous is coming, it knocks the ground with its trunk to notice other elephants.

Many elephants are being abusing by people and there many ways elephants are abused. In Thailand, people abuse elephants using elephants’ trunk which is necessary part of body for elephants. People force them to draw on t-shirts so that they can earn money from tourists. Because tourists would think elephant drawing is amazing so t-shirt would be great memorial in Thailand.

This elephant is having skin disease but still working for tourists.

The elephants are used to log field.