Elephant
Elephant
Fossil range: Pliocene–Recent
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Asian and African elephants.
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class:
Mammalia
Order:
Proboscidea
Family:
Elephantidae
Gray, 1821
Subfamilia
• See Classification
Elephants are large land mammals of the
order Proboscidea and the family Elephant-
idae. There are three living species: the Afric-
an Bush Elephant,
the African Forest
Elephant and the Asian Elephant (also known
as the Indian Elephant). Other species have
become extinct since the last ice age, the
Mammoths, dwarf forms of which may have
survived as late as 2,000 BC,[1] being the
best-known of
these. They were once
Comparative view of the human and elephant
frames, c1860.
classified along with other thick skinned an-
imals in a now invalid order, Pachydermata.
Elephants are the largest land animals.[2]
The elephant’s gestation period is 22 months,
the longest of any land animal. At birth it is
common for an elephant calf
to weigh
120 kilograms (260 lb). They typically live for
50 to 70 years, but the oldest recorded ele-
phant lived for 82 years.[3] The largest ele-
phant ever recorded was shot in Angola in
1956. This male weighed about 12,000 kilo-
grams (26,000 lb),[4] with a shoulder height
of 4.2 metres (14 ft), a metre (yard) taller
than the average male African elephant.[5]
The smallest elephants, about the size of a
calf or a large pig, were a prehistoric species
that lived on the island of Crete during the
Pleistocene epoch.[6]
The elephant has appeared in cultures
across the world. They are a symbol of wis-
dom in Asian cultures and are famed for their
memory and intelligence, where they are
thought to be on par with cetaceans[7] and
hominids.[8] Aristotle once said the elephant
was "the beast which passeth all others in wit
and mind"[9]. The word "elephant" has its ori-
gins in the Greek ἐλέφας, meaning "ivory" or
"elephant".[10]
Healthy adult elephants have no natural
predators[11], although lions may take calves
or weak