Aerial photo taken on June 7, 2021 shows wild Asian elephants napping in Jinning District of Kunming, southwest China’s Yunnan Province.
Credit: © Xinhua/Alamy Images

A wild elephant herd has captured global attention and baffled, well, everyone. Fifteen elephants, including three calves, have been on a mysterious trek across their native China. Traveling for over a year, the migration has taken them more than 300 miles (500 kilometers) from home. Their natural habitat is thought to be the Mengyangzi Nature Reserve in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan. Reserves are areas of land set aside to protect the habitats of elephants and other wild animals. China only has about 300 wild elephants. Most live in the south of the Yunnan province.

The traveling herd gained fame in China despite trampling crops, damaging property, and occasionally poking a trunk through someone’s window. The elephant’s padded feet enable them to walk and run with surprisingly little noise. Elephants normally walk at a speed of 3 to 6 miles (5 to 10 kilometers) an hour. When making a long journey, a family walks at about 10 miles (16 kilometers) an hour.

The elephants might have been looking for a new habitat, though they wouldn’t find one among millions in the city Kunming. Paths were cleared and food was provided as towns moved to protect the elephants.

Safety is a high priority for the endangered Asian elephant. Local government launched drones and mobilized hundreds of people to protect the herd’s migration. People attempted to steer the elephants in the southwest direction, back toward the reserve. However, the herd may have decided to head home all on their own.

Elephants are extremely strong and highly intelligent. There are two kinds of elephants, African elephants and Asian elephants, also known as Indian elephants. Asian elephants live only in southern and southeastern Asia. They are found in forests and jungles of Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Today, wildlife experts agree that elephants are in great danger and need human protection to survive. The number of wild elephants has greatly declined because people kill elephants for their ivory tusks. Farming and industry threaten the natural resources needed by elephants to survive. In Asia, human population growth and habitat destruction have severely reduced the number of wild elephants. Scientists estimate that only about 40,000 Asian elephants survive in the wild.

An adult Asian bull stands from 9 to 101/2 feet (2.7 to 3.2 meters) tall at the shoulder and weighs up to 8,000 pounds (3,600 kilograms). Asian cows stand about 8 feet (2.4 meters) tall and weigh about 6,600 pounds (3,000 kilograms).

Most Asian elephants have light gray skin and may have pink or white spots. Most Asian bulls have tusks that grow from 4 to 5 feet (1.2 to 1.5 meters) long. However, some Asian males, called makhnas, have no tusks, and many Asian females have none. Other Asian females have extremely short tusks called tushes.

July 26, 2018

The baobab, one of the world’s most unusual and iconic trees, is in danger. The gigantic baobab, known as the “tree of life,” can live as long as 3,000 years. But the hardy trees are suddenly dying in unusual numbers, many long before their expected life spans. Climate change has increased the occurrence of such weather anomalies as droughts, floods, and lightning storms, all of which can harm or kill baobab trees. A destructive mold called black fungus is also appearing more frequently on baobab trees. The tree is further threatened by the loss of its natural habitat to agriculture and development. Habitat loss and illegal hunting have also greatly reduced the population of African elephants, the animals largely responsible for spreading the tree’s seeds. If no action is taken to protect the baobab and its environment, certain species of the tree could be extinct within 100 years.

These giant baobabs form part of the magnificent Avenue of the Baobabs in the Megabe region of western Madagascar. Credit: © Monika Hrdinova, Shutterstock

Baobab is the name of a group of trees that grow in tropical and subtropical regions of the Eastern Hemisphere, especially in Madagascar. The best-known type of baobab is found on the African mainland. It has an extremely thick, often bulging, trunk. This tree may grow to 80 feet (24 meters) tall with a trunk from 30 to 50 feet (9 to 15 meters) in diameter. The tree has white flowers that open at night and are pollinated by bats. The fruit, called monkey bread, is almost 1 foot (30 centimeters) long. It dangles from the tree like a lantern from a long, ropy stem. The fruit holds many seeds buried in a mealy pulp. The pulp, which is rich in vitamin C, serves as food for both animals and people, and it is also used to flavor cool drinks. People sometimes use the leaves and bark in medicines. They make paper, cloth, and rope from the bark fibers. The giant trees also provide shade in the hot climates where they grow, serving as cool gathering places for animals and humans alike.

African elephants, who are themselves in danger, help propagate baobabs by eating the tree’s fruit and seeds (antelopes, baboons, and other animals also contribute). The seeds pass through the animal’s digestive system, and they are then dropped in ready-made fertilizer. Elephants tend to walk great distances in search of food and water, and a single tree’s seeds can thus be spread out over many miles. Ironically, elephants are also known to damage or kill baobab trees in times of severe drought. Elephants sometimes rip apart a baobab’s trunk to get at the tree’s bountiful water supply inside.

Adrian Patrut, a chemist at Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania, has led an international research study on baobab trees since 2005. Patrut pioneered a radiocarbon technique to date baobabs, which do not have the tell-tale age rings found in most trees. Patrut and his team have kept close tabs on the largest and oldest baobabs in southern Africa. They found that 9 of the 13 oldest recorded baobabs (between 1,100 and 2,500 years old) and 5 of the 6 largest have died in the past 12 years—an alarming death rate among these long-living trees. Parts of many other baobabs have also died. The trees have multiple core systems within their massive trunks, allowing parts of the tree to die while the rest lives on.

Of the nine species of baobab trees, six are endemic to the African island of Madagascar. Of those six, half are on the Red List of Threatened Species compiled by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). The numbers of three Madagascar baobabs—Adansonia grandidieri, Adansonia perrieri, and Adansonia suarezensis—have dropped more than a 50 percent since the 1950′s. A. perrieri and A. suarezensis are considered critically endangered. The numbers of the remaining baobab species that live in mainland Africa, the Arabian peninsula, and Australia are also on the decline.

March 12, 2015

South African elephants may be good at smelling out explosives. Credit: © Moments by Mullineux/Shutterstock

Can elephants really sniff out danger? The United States Army Research Office seems to think so. In South Africa, elephants are being used to identify explosives by smell, just like dogs, which have a long history of detecting explosives. In multiple tests, elephants were led to a line of buckets. One of the buckets had an object as small as a cotton swab laced with TNT. The elephants correctly identified the bucket containing TNT almost every time. These results have raised speculation about whether an elephant’s strong sense of smell can truly save lives.

This project stemmed from an observation that elephants carefully avoid mine-filled areas in Angola after many years of civil war. Researchers found that some elephants seemed to intentionally avoid the minefields. However, researchers were not sure it was a scent that kept the elephants away. They questioned if the elephants associated the area with danger because many elephants have died there in the past. Or, could their trunks warn them to steer clear?

An elephant’s trunk, which can measure 5 feet (1.5 meters) and weigh 300 pounds (140 kilograms), is a combined nose and upper lip. An elephant smells and breathes with its trunk and uses its trunk to sniff the air and the ground constantly. Its sense of smell is more sensitive than that of any other animal.

With African elephants being the largest animals to live on land, it would not make sense to herd them around minefields to sniff out danger. And, no one would want to risk the safety of these animals, as they are vulnerable to becoming extinct because of poaching. So, instead, researchers would use unmanned drones to collect scent samples from mined areas and bring the samples back to the elephants. A trained elephant would sniff the samples and alert human handlers to any signs of explosives. Researchers are also hoping to copy an elephant’s sense of smell and incorporate it into electronic sensors that detect threatening materials.

Other Worldbook articles:

• In the Company of Elephants (a Special Report)
• Mine warfare

March 10, 2015

Last week, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced they will retire their performing elephants by 2018. The animals will then live at the company’s Center for Elephant Conservation in central Florida. The 200-acre (80-hectare) center was established in 1995 and is a home for elephants to grow up and grow old.

After 145 years of featuring the animals in its “Greatest Show on Earth,” the company announced that it had taken this “unprecedented” decision to be able to focus its efforts on elephant conservation programs in North America and Sri Lanka. Critics noted the announcement came after years of scrutiny and criticism concerning the organization’s training and treatment of elephants while on tour, which can include traveling to over 100 cities in a year. Several cities banned shows with live elephants, which made Ringling Brothers tour schedule more complex.

Elephants performing at a Ringling Brothers show. Animal-rights activists have objected to the way in which elephants are housed and trained when traveling with the circus. Credit: © Shutterstock

The Asian elephant (Elephas maximas), the species of elephant featured in Ringling Brothers shows, is one of the largest animals on Earth, standing from 9 to 10 ½ feet (2.7 to 3.2 meters) tall at the shoulder and weighing up to 8,000 pounds (3,600 kilograms). Elephants are extremely strong, highly intelligent, and socially sensitive. People have tamed and trained them for thousands of years. Trained circus elephants can stand on their heads, lie down and roll over, dance, and perform many other tricks. According to Ringling Brothers circus, elephants can respond to some 60 verbal commands.

Hopefully, Ringling Brothers conservation center can help to increase the number of Asian elephants. There are only about 40,000 to 50,000 of this endangered species remaining in the wild. Since the 1860′s, the animal’s population has been halved. Threats to elephants’ survival include habitat loss, conflict with humans, and illegal wildlife trade, especially of ivory from elephant tusks. Wildlife experts agree that elephants are in great danger and need human protection to survive. A spokesman for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey stated of their Center for Elephant Conservation, “No other institution has done or is doing more to save this species from extinction.”

Other World Book articles:

• In the Company of Elephants (a Special report)
• Ringling brothers

October 19, 2012

Scientists at Princeton University reported in mid-October that they had finally determined why elephants have hair: to help them cool down. The result was surprising, because for most mammals, hair helps the body to stay warm.

Many people may be surprised to hear that elephants have hair at all. Actually, elephants have hair all across the head and back. Both African and Asian varieties have hair, though Asian elephants have more of it. Young elephants have noticeably more hair than older elephants do. Granted, elephant hair is rather sparse. The scientists analyzed the density of elephant hair and found that elephants have about 1 hair per square inch (0.16 hair per square centimeter) of skin. The head of a human being has about 1,290 hairs per square inch (200 hairs per square centimeter).

Elephants, like all mammals, have hair at some time in their lives. However, the hair of elephants is very sparse. (World Book illustrations by Jean Helmer)

Because they live in some of the warmest places in the world–countries in Africa and Asia–it is very important for elephants to be able to cool off. Their own body structure, however, makes it very difficult for them to do so. An elephant’s body has a large volume (the space it occupies) compared to the surface area of its skin. So it is difficult for an elephant’s body to shed heat. Elephants typically perform certain behaviors to cool off. They flap their ears, cover themselves in dust and mud to repel sunlight, and use their trunks to spray water on themselves. However, all of these behaviors are still not enough for an elephant to shed the amount of body heat it produces. Apparently, the elephant’s wiry hair also plays a part.

Elephants cool off in several ways, including bathing in water or using their trunks to spray water on themselves. (copyright C. Haagner, Bruce Coleman, Inc.)

The Princeton scientists used data they already had about how animals shed heat. By varying such details as amount of skin surface, width and density of the hair, wind speed, and texture of the skin, they concluded that elephant hairs can enhance the animal’s heat loss from between 5 and 20 percent. They also found the density at which hair on an animal begins to have a cooling effect–about 195 hairs per square inch (30 hairs per square centimeter).

The Princeton research may help to explain why animals developed hair when they did, about 100 million to 300 million years ago. At that time, Earth was much warmer than it is today, and animals needed to be able to cool off. The scientists speculated that animal hair may have evolved into a way to keep bodies warm as the climate cooled.

Even as scientists are learning more about elephants, conservationists are concerned about the ability of the animals to survive. WWF (World Wildlife Fund) officials reported in March 2012 that in Africa, elephants are being hunted virtually to extinction as poachers kill the animals for their ivory tusks.

Additional World Book articles:

• Climate
• Conservation