Asian Elephant
Common Name
Asian Elephant
Scientific Name
Elephas Maximus
Body Covering
Asian Elephants have thick wrinkled skin that is a greyish brown colour. Their skin is very dry with hair covering their whole body.
Size
Asian Elephant grow 5–6 m long, stand up to 3m tall, and weigh up to 5T. Females are generally smaller than males.
Trunk
The trunk provides a wide variety of functions from feeding, vocalisation, bathing and fighting. Asian Elephants can also use their trunk to cover themselves with mud to protect them from the sun and it is useful for carrying heavy objects.
Adaptations
Structural Adaptation
The Asian Elephant has developed large ears to cool themselves down in the hot, Asian sun. Asian Elephants do not have sweat glands and they live in a tropical environment, they need to find a way to cool themselves down. They do this by fanning themselves with their large ears. Without their large ears, effective fanning would not be possible and therefore they would overheat in their environment. Their ears are shown in the photo to the left.
Behavioral Adaptation
Asian Elephants only sleep for 4 hours per day. This means they can spend the other 20 hours finding and eating the large amount of food required to give them energy. If they slept any longer than 4 hours they would not be able to eat enough food to power their enormous bodies.
Natural Environment
Asian Elephants live in large blocks of forest near water sources and grasslands, their habitat that has been greatly reduced in the last half century. Their environment is very tropical where they feed on grass, bark, roots, leaves and other vegetation.Seen below, the zoo enclosure replicates the natural environment with lots of water, mud, vegetation and rocks.
Asian Elephant
Scientific Name
Elephas Maximus
Body Covering
Asian Elephants have thick wrinkled skin that is a greyish brown colour. Their skin is very dry with hair covering their whole body.
Size
Asian Elephant grow 5–6 m long, stand up to 3m tall, and weigh up to 5T. Females are generally smaller than males.
Trunk
The trunk provides a wide variety of functions from feeding, vocalisation, bathing and fighting. Asian Elephants can also use their trunk to cover themselves with mud to protect them from the sun and it is useful for carrying heavy objects.
Adaptations
Structural Adaptation
The Asian Elephant has developed large ears to cool themselves down in the hot, Asian sun. Asian Elephants do not have sweat glands and they live in a tropical environment, they need to find a way to cool themselves down. They do this by fanning themselves with their large ears. Without their large ears, effective fanning would not be possible and therefore they would overheat in their environment. Their ears are shown in the photo to the left.
Behavioral Adaptation
Asian Elephants only sleep for 4 hours per day. This means they can spend the other 20 hours finding and eating the large amount of food required to give them energy. If they slept any longer than 4 hours they would not be able to eat enough food to power their enormous bodies.
Natural Environment
Asian Elephants live in large blocks of forest near water sources and grasslands, their habitat that has been greatly reduced in the last half century. Their environment is very tropical where they feed on grass, bark, roots, leaves and other vegetation.Seen below, the zoo enclosure replicates the natural environment with lots of water, mud, vegetation and rocks.