Loxodonta africana – African Elephant
The largest land mammal in existence today
These awe inspiring animals softly walk the earth leaving broken trees and branches in their wake. The elephant is not as slow moving or clumsy as it appears, and will fiercly defend its young, old and weak. Being a herd animal with a matriarchal system the elephant is a highly social animal that even mourns its dead. Its intelligence and cunning ways makes it a ultimate survivor with poaching for its ivory being the only real threat to its survival.
Many years ago there were several species of elephant, that have unfortunately gone extinct.
At this point in time we have only three surviving species of which the African Elephant is one. Their closest living relatives on land are the Hyraxes of Africa.
The elephant’s most distinguishing feature is its trunk or proboscis (proboscidea – pro being derived from Greek and means before and boscis which is also Greek means mouth)
The elephant’s trunk is used to drink water (up to 8liters per load) and enables the animal to feed, bath, smell, touch, defend itself and communicate. The trunk is highly mobile and is very sensitive. The number of muscles in an elephant’s trunk is about 40 000.
The big ears on these animals serve a cooling function, and musing bull elephants use their ears to spread the odor from the temporal glands to inform both the females and other males of their presence.
The mere size of the African elephant is enough to make any brave heart tremble in the knees. These animals can reach a weight of 4.7 ton in males and 3.5ton in females depending on the area where they are found.
Elephant populations in Africa (especially South Africa) have sky-rocketed to such an extent that culling and cropping have been done for years to bring the herds down to more manageable sized groups. The outcome usually leads to distressed animals and orphan calves. Many rehabilitation centres have been opened around the country to help with this problem. This on a positive note enables people to go to these sanctuaries and actually interact with these gentle giants.
The well trained staff at our Askari venue will provide guests with a two hour educational session, where guests can ask questions, touch and walk with these animals. It is quite humbling to hear such a large animal breath and when they look at you, you can sense a connection to their souls.
Every elephant has its own personality, just like us humans. Many can be very mischievous while others are more content with themselves.
An experience which should be on your “To-do” list.
We at Sun Fun Africa Safari’s have a passion for these animals, and that is why we decided to add them to our packages.
NOW you can combine your BIG flight with one of nature’s BIG FIVE
~Eleanor~
