The Big and the Beautiful Trivia Quiz

Answer: Allomothering

The savannah elephant makes up one of the two genera of the extant Elephantidae family, the Asian elephant being the other. It was recognized that the forest elephant was not a subspecies of the African elephant, but rather a separate species altogether to the savannah. Technological advances in DNA testing have allowed it to be stated with authority that there are three species of elephant (savannah/bush, forest, and Asian).

Having such long gestation periods - the longest in the animal kingdom - elephant calves are born very developed, already about 120 kg (figure given for an African elephant calf. Asian elephant calves are around 100 kg when born). A newborn elephant is only about an hour old when it takes its first steps.

Answer: By eating adult elephant dung

An elephant's digestion is only 40% efficient and this figure would be even lower if it were not for the microflora in their guts. Elephants compensate for this poor efficiency by consuming incredible volumes - adults require around 130 kg of food a day (that's 50 tonnes a year!).

Like humans, elephants have nipples, not teats. These are located on a pair of breasts which are found between the front legs of the cow. A mother's milk is the most important part of a calf's diet during the first two years, and it remains as part of its diet until its fourth year. If a mother dies in the first two years of a calf's life, the calf will most likely die too, as other adult females in the herd are unlikely to suckle it, despite the allomothering outlined in the previous question.

Savannah elephants continue to grow throughout their lives, and bulls will eventually become the largest land animals on earth, even larger than forest or Asian elephant species.

Answer: Communication

Whilst the sensitivity of an elephant's trunk may be of use in all of these things (feeding, grooming, and defence), the alinasal cartilage is what allows an elephant to modify the sounds which it produces. This ability is essential to the social aspect of elephant's life - it allows them to locate herd members as well as signalling that a female is ready to mate.

The trunk is controlled by tens of thousands of muscles, which is what allows it to be such a versatile organ. It can hold huge quantities of water (useful when both drinking and bathing), it can strip branches of their leaves, and it can clean the elephant's ears and eyes. The trunk is also of paramount importance to the elephant whilst grazing, as the heavy skull of this giant has meant that it has evolved so that its head cannot reach the ground.

The trunk is one of the first tools of communication a newborn elephant, such as Elewa, uses. His poor eyesight after birth means that he is very dependent on his trunk, and it is noticeable that a mother and a calf will rarely be more than a trunk's length apart during the start of the calf's life.

Answer: Incisors

Elephant's tusks first appear at around the age of two, and continue to grow until old age. The notable exceptions to this are female Asian elephants, which do not possess tusks. These fearsome looking teeth are used to dig, pull, push, carry, and communicate, but only occasionally are they used as weapons. The tusks of African - both savannah and forest - elephants are generally longer and sharper than those of the male Asian elephant.

Ivory is a mixture of dentine and calcium salts, and is sought after by poachers. In the 1970/80's, poachers (many of whom were soldiers of Idi Amin) reduced the elephant population of the Murchison Falls National Park from 8,000 to just 100.

Answer: African elephants have long, tufted tails, whereas Asian elephants have docked tails

Both African and Asian elephants have long, tufted tails.

As well as the difference in size, back shape, and trunk processes, differences between the African and Asian elephants include the number of rib pairs (Africans usually have 21, whereas Asians usually have 20), and ear size (African's ears are significantly larger).

In regard to physiological differences between forest and savannah elephants, the distinction can be seen in toe number (savannah elephants have 4 nails on their front feet and 3 on the back feet, whereas forest elephants have 5 on the front and 4 on the back). Also, the forest elephant is said to have a narrower jawbone and straighter tusks. Much more is known about the savannah species as they are easier to find and have been more thoroughly researched.

Answer: Largely solitary, occasionally meeting in small groups of other bulls

Upon reaching puberty (usually at around 11-15 years of age), male elephants must be forced out so as to not pose a threat to newborn calves.

Conversely, young females usually stay in the herd which they were born into. However, if a herd grows too large, a small group of females will break off to form a new herd.

Elephant herds are matriarchal, and the eldest (and therefore largest) female will act as leader. When under threat, the matriarch is usually the first to charge in defence, and this has meant that she is also the first to fall victim to poachers, thus leaving the herd leaderless for a period of time.

Answer: Intoxicated

Male Asian elephants, which are forced out of their maternal herd at a younger age (around 6-7 years old), enter a phase of musth at about the age of 20, whereas African elephants tend to enter this dramatic phase later, at around 29 years of age. Asian elephants' musth periods are also more extreme, as they are generally more violent. Whilst Asian elephants' musth periods usually coincide with the time when most females are in estrus, many African elephants' musth periods curiously coincide with times of heavy rainfall.

Female elephants in estrus will separate themselves from the herd and will release scents and low-frequency sounds which can be detected by bulls. The sounds emitted by female elephants before mating are often inaudible to humans.

Answer: An elephant's brain can be as heavy as that of a blue whale's

The brain of a bull savannah elephant (the largest species of elephant) can weigh up to 5.4 kg, though most sources give the figure of a bull's brain weight as 5 kg. The brain of a blue whale is also usually given as around 5 kg, which would surprise many, not because 5 kg is a small brain (it is certainly not), but because of the giant body size of the blue whale - it's tongue alone being the weight of an adult elephant.

Despite the huge brain size of the elephant, it is still far smaller than one would assume when viewing its enormous skull. The reason for this giant skull is so as to support the elephant's huge trunk, teeth and jaws.

Answer: Streaking

The act of streaking is generally thought to be done by elephants with the intention of quickly passing through dangerous areas. Most examples of this rare action are seen at night.

Some elephants have been observed travelling as much as 25 miles just to get to an area in which rain had recently fallen, with the intention of eating the vegetation which grows as a result of this precipitation.

Since the closing years of the 20th century, it has become much easier to monitor elephants' movements in the wild, with radio tracking in place since 1969 and global positioning technology, which was implemented shortly before the turn of the century.

Answer: Digging a grave for the dead elephant

Elephants form strong emotional bonds with each other during life - even the solitary bulls, such as Elewa - and they show signs of extreme sadness when another elephant dies. The intensity of this sadness varies depending on the relationship between the elephants when living, but observational studies have shown undeniably that elephants pay far more attention to even the corpses of unknown members of their species than lions, or even chimpanzees, for example, will. Elephant mothers who lose their calves have been known to stand by the corpse, mourn, and protect it for up to four days. One herd of elephants were observed propping up their dead matriarch and carrying her away from danger.