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Elephants are herbivorous and will eat leaves, twigs, fruit, bark, grass, and roots. African elephants mostly browse, while Asian elephants mainly graze. [34] They can eat as much as 300 kg (660 lb) of food and drink 40 L (11 US gal) of water in a day. Elephants tend to stay near water sources.
The first molars grow to a size of 2 cm (0.79 in) wide by 4 cm (1.6 in) long, are worn by the age of one year and lost by the age of about 2.5 years. The second molars start protruding at the age of about six months, and grow to a size of 4 cm (1.6 in) wide by 7 cm (2.8 in) long and are lost by the age of 6–7 years.
Elephants replace their teeth four to six times in their lifetimes. At around 40 to 60 years of age, the elephant loses the last of its molars and will likely die of starvation which is a common cause of death. African elephants have 24 teeth in total, six on each quadrant of the jaw.
Another threat is insufficient forestation or a lack of trees due to logging. Borneo elephants need 100–225 litres (22–49 imp gal; 26–59 US gal) of water a day and if it is harder to find because of climatic conditions or cutting their resource of water, their only option is to migrate to where they can find that resource to survive. [14]
It is one of only three living species of elephants or elephantids anywhere in the world, the others being the African bush elephant and African forest elephant. Further, the Asian elephant is the only living species of the genus Elephas. It is the second largest species of elephant after the African bush elephant.
[19] [2] In a 2015 study, one fragmentary unlocated femur of P. namadicus described in the 19th century was estimated to have belonged to an individual 5.2 metres (17 ft) tall and 22 tonnes (49,000 lb) in weight, exceeding the estimates for the otherwise largest known land mammals, the paraceratheres.
African forest elephants are hunted by various hunter-gatherer groups in the Congo basin, including by Mbuti pygmies, among others. It is unknown how long the active hunting of elephants in the region has been practised, and it may have only begun as a response for the demand for ivory beginning in the 19th century or earlier. [55]
Elephantidae is a family of large, herbivorous proboscidean mammals collectively called elephants and mammoths. These are large terrestrial mammals with a snout modified into a trunk and teeth modified into tusks. Most genera and species in the family are extinct. Only two genera, Loxodonta (African elephants) and Elephas (Asian elephants), are ...