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Savanna Elephants

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“Animal life encyclopedia” written by Bernhard Grzimek’s, an author and a zoologist, states that there are two recognized varieties of African elephant – African Steppe (also known as Savanna) elephant, which belongs to Sudan region and is characterized by its big ears, four toes on the front, and three toe on the hind legs, and also Bush or Forest elephant, which has round years, five toes on front, and four toes on hind legs (p. 500). The measurements of the size and weight of this majestic animal, which is the largest to walk the earth, are impressive, “L [including trunk] 6-7.5 m, TL 1-3.3 m, shoulder height 3-4 m, weight 5000-7500 kg [making the African elephant the heaviest land mammals alive today]” (Grzimek, p. 500). And as for the …show more content…
The Savanna elephants “…throw their weight around in search for food. They prune savanna brush on a gigantic scale, tear down trees, and crash through thick woods to reach water holes. This creates habitats for smaller animals. They get new paths to trod, newly trampled land on which to graze” (Allen, p. 143). As for the Forest ones, “…elephant tree-tearing opens the land to the sky, creating glades for a host of animals.” (Allen, p. 143). Besides, elephants have a connection to the way the plant ecosystem develops: “Even in death elephant changes the environment, for as the great body decomposes, toxic fluids kill the roots of certain trees, producing another clearing” (Allen, p. 143). And this reflects the niche that African elephant has in its environment, being an essential part of the ecological and biological systems of Africa. But African elephants can play sometimes a negative role in the environment as well, “In some protected areas, such as Tsavo National Park (Kenya), elephants are crowding together in such large numbers that they are destroying the local flora, endangering other protected species there…” (Grzimek, p. 501).
African elephant is a mammal, it belongs to an African clade of the eutherians, or placental mammals - “…elephants are part of this African lineage, called the Afrotheria…” (Raven et al. p. 520). Its order Proboscidea gave the rise to the Elephantidae group to which African elephant belongs, along with the related Asian elephant species, which however differ from African species when it comes to anatomy and evolutionary line (Grzimek,

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