African Elephants

By Coleman Haden

What are the important parts of the African Elephant?

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The African Elephant Requires a lot of important anitomical structures to live, here are some of them:

Their Trunk
Their Tusks
Their Big Ears
Their Teeth
Their Feet
Their Brain
Their Hair
And Finally Their Skin

Why is their Trunk important?

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The Trunk has more than 40,000 muscles that makes the trunk strong and agile. These muscles allow the elephant to use it's trunk for daily tasks like eating. The African Elephant also uses It's Trunk for if they think there is a sign of danger by lifting the trunk to smell for predators. Finally, The African Elephant has two fingers on the tip of their trunk to allow for holding objects like tree branches.

How do Elephants have Trunks?

Their trunk developed from natural selection by making only elephants with trunks to meet essential needs like the need to eat, and bathe, they use their trunk to pick up heavy objects like thick tree branches and to reach up into trees to grab leaves to eat.

What do their Tusks do?

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Tusks are long exposed incisor teeth that can be used as an age indicator of the elephant. A fun fact is that 1/3 of an elephant's tusk is hidden it their skull. Another interesting fact is that Elephants are left tusked of right tusked essentially left or right handed, the favored tusk is usually shorter. Tusks tend to differ in:

size
shape
length
thickness
and growth direction

Fun Fact! If the tusk is not worn down by an elephant but still continues grows it will start to spiral.

and finally, Tusks are used for:

digging
ripping bark of trees(favorite food of an African elephant)
foraging
and carrying heavy objects

Good video for understanding african elephant anatomy:

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Source:

Spencer, J. (2023, September 4). Elephant anatomy Facts - Complete Diagram of anatomy. Animal Corner. https://animalcorner.org/elephant-anatomy/