Originally Posted by
derventa
This topic is now about Elephants
elephants are large land
mammals of the
order Proboscidea and the
family Elephantidae. There are three living
species: the
African Bush Elephant, the
African Forest Elephant and the
Asian Elephant (also known as the Indian Elephant). Other species have become
extinct since the last
ice age, the
Mammoths, dwarf forms of which may have survived as late as 2,000 BC,[sup]
[1][/sup] being the best-known of these. They were once classified along with other thick skinned animals in a now invalid
order,
Pachydermata.
Elephants are the
largest land animals.[sup]
[2][/sup] The elephant's
gestation period is 22 months, the longest of any land animal. At birth it is common for an elephant calf to weigh 120 kilograms (260 lb). They typically live for 50 to 70 years, but the oldest recorded elephant lived for 82 years.[sup]
[3][/sup] The largest elephant ever recorded was shot in
Angola in 1956. This male weighed about 12,000 kilograms (26,000 lb),[sup]
[4][/sup] with a shoulder height of 4.2 metres (14 ft), a metre (yard) taller than the average male African elephant.[sup]
[5][/sup] The smallest elephants, about the size of a calf or a large pig, were a prehistoric species that lived on the island of
Crete during the
Pleistocene epoch.[sup]
[6][/sup]
The elephant has appeared in cultures across the world. They are a symbol of wisdom in Asian cultures and are famed for their memory and intelligence, where they are thought to be on par with
cetaceans[sup]
[7][/sup] and
hominids.[sup]
[8][/sup]
Aristotle once said the elephant was "the beast which passeth all others in wit and mind"[sup]
[9][/sup]. The word "elephant" has its origins in the Greek
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ἐλέφας
