The habits of elephants

Elephants live in a variety of habitats, especially in jungles, grasslands and river valleys. With the female elephant as the leader, he likes to live in groups, and the male occasionally lives alone. Eat a lot of food on plants, and an adult elephant eats about 300 kilograms a day. Their average life expectancy is about 80 years. So, what are the morphological characteristics of elephants? What are its natural enemies? The following will be introduced by the editor.

1. The morphological characteristics of elephants

Their main external features are flexible and muscular long noses, large ears and pointed teeth, have the function of winding, and are powerful tools such as self-defense and feeding.

Asian elephants have shoulders between 3.7 and 4.1 meters high. It weighs 3 to 5 tons, the African elephant has a shoulder height of 4.3 to 4.5 meters and weighs 5.5 to 8 tons, and the African forest elephant has an average shoulder height of no more than 2.7 meters and a weight of 3.5 tons. The elephant's head is big, its ears are as big as a fan, its limbs are as thick as a column to support a huge body, the knee joint cannot flexion freely, and the length of its trunk is almost equal to its body length, showing a cylindrical shape and flexion freely; its trunk is all composed of muscles, with nostrils opening at the end and finger-like protuberances at the tip of its nose, which can pick up objects as small as 1 ton or peanuts.

Second, the natural enemies of elephants

Elephants are at the top of the food chain. Generally speaking, they have no natural enemies. Only the lion will attack the lone elephant of the old age, and the elephant herd dares not attack. Its greatest natural enemy is human beings!

Because man opened up meadows and forests, causing its food crisis, and because of man's wanton hunting, elephants were nearly extinct.

For a healthy adult elephant, apart from the human threat, they face very few enemies. Research shows that elephants are only afraid of unfamiliar scenes and sounds, which is once thought to be the root cause of elephants' fear of mice. In ancient Rome, elephants were used as tools of war, and records show that at that time they fled because they were afraid of the cry of pigs. As a result, this almost only weakness in the elephant has been exaggerated to this point, and the mouse has become the legendary enemy of the elephant.

Elephant is one of the endangered species, and it is also a first-class wild protected animal in China. The protection of elephants lies not only in its ecological importance, but also because their existence symbolizes the victory of justice.