Elephant touching

Elephants not only use their trunks for eating, smelling and drinking, but also touching each other, especially when young.

This re-enforces the bond between the animals of the herd

This baby is only about 18 months old.

A place like paradise - our Serengeti - Part 1

Over the weekend I went to Pilansberg again and the plains were teaming with widlife. This included a breeding herd with three baby elephants, zebra by the hundreds, blue wildebeest, impala, giraffe and kudu to name a few species.

This young male was in musth and was chasing all the animlas around. I had a good laugh at him as he thought he was big stuff!! LOL!!

Aren't they just the cutest?? I wanted to bring one home.

Pilansberg National Park - Part 1

We have a small game reserve near us which is only one and a half hours drive away, so I can leave at 4am and get there when the gates open at 5:30.
On this particular day, the first thing I saw was very fresh elephant dung but could not find the elephant. It is amazing how such a huge (5-6 ton) animal can just melt into the bush and you cannot find them.

Coming around a corner, I meet this White rhino standing looking at me, and I wait for him to amble across the road.

Because of the recent rain, the bush is very green with enough food for all the various kinds of animals found there.

I head down to this lookout point which is built by a dam and love the reflection of the trees in the water. I sit there a while drinking my coffee which I have brought with me in a flask and enjoy the sound of the birds in the trees.

I hear the roar of a lion nearby and quickly get into my car to see if I can find him, but alas, there is only his footprints in the sand.

A Glossy Starling sits in a nearby tree looking for food.....

....and this baboon sits on a hill acting as the lookout.

and Blue Wildebeest. Becuase the park is enclosed with a fence, the game wardens put these salt licks out for them in various places. Young wildebeest are brown when born and don't look anything like their parents yet. They can run as fast as the adults 20 minutes after birth.

The Redwing Starling has a mouth full of berries which he takes to a nearby pole to eat.

There are lots of herds of zebra........

Elephants

As their blood vessels are near to the surface of their skin, they can be seen flapping their ears in order to keep themselves cool.

Their trunks can hold up to 16 pints of water at a time, but they do not drink through them. Once the trunk is full, it is then squirted into their mouths.

Elephants continue to grow throughout their lives, although the extent of this does slow down with age, even their eyes.

Elephants actually walk on their toes. They have a thick layer of cartilage between their bones and the earth which acts as a shock absorber.

They are excellent swimmers and are recorded in Zimbabwe of swimming up to 50 miles from one island to the mainland. An ordeal which took them 5 days and they came out with pinkish looking skin.

Females have sharp, square foreheads, while the male has a round forehead.

During their lifetime, their teeth are replaced six times. When the last set wears down, they are unable to eat and so die of starvation.

Of all the mammals, they have the longest gestation period (pregnancy), twenty two months. The females stand to give birth where after a single young is born in the sack in which it was developed. If it does not break, the female will kick it against a sharp stone or abject until it burst open and enables the baby to come out.

A baby elephant weights about 260 lbs at birth and can walk under its mothers belly for its first year.

Each elephant footprint is as different as our fingerprints. This allows people to track them in the wild.

The main difference between the African and Asiatic elephant are: (1) The African elephant has much larger ears (2) The trunk of the Asiatic elephant does not have the lower prehensile (usable) tip. (3) The Asiatic elephant has a hump back whereas the African elephant has a concave or ‘hollow” back.

The earliest known species of Proboscidea stood 60cm in height and evolved into Moeritherium. These split up over the years and became elephants and hyrax on the one side and dugongs and manatees on the other.

Both males and females have tusk although those of the females tend to be lighter and smaller.

Their brain is the size of a walnut.
As their eyes are situated on the side of their heads, they cannot see directly in front of them and this was put to good use by hunters.

The skin is crinkly or creased and because this, it gives it a larger surface area, allows for more cooling by whatever breeze may be around.
In certain areas such as the legs, and trunk the skin may reach a thickness of 1-2 inches.

Elephants have extremely long eyelashes.
Their tails are flattened on the end and can be covered with hairs up to 16 inches long and are used in the making of bangles.

Because they cannot sleep lying down as their weight on their diaphragm prevents them from breathing, they can be seen leaning against a tree trunk fast asleep. But usually they catnap where they are standing for about ten minutes at a time.
When fully grown, their daily consumption can be up to 650 lbs of green food and 280 pints of water per day. This is what the local zoo feeds each elephant per day.

The foot is spread out when on the ground and shrinks when raised, this allows them to walk very silently.

In times of drought, elephants will dig in dry riverbeds for water.