Asian Elephant in India

The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus indicus ) is the biggest and the most dynamic mammal in Asia. Asian elephants are only one of the two living species of elephants that can be tamed.

The Physical Attributes of Asian Elephant :
The Indian elephants are usually gray in color with many light blotches all over the body. They generally have few long stiff hairs that are present at certain parts on their body. The hairs that are found at the tip of the tail are used for flying the insects that sit on the back of the elephants body. The forehead is flat and tall in Asian elephants, and its long trunk has a single finger-like projection at the tip. The Asian elephant has smaller ears, four nails on each hind foot instead of three, and tusks are only present in some males. These tusks are generally shorter than their African counterparts. Asian elephants are about 22 feet long, and about 8 to 10.5 ft tall at the shoulder. They can weigh up to six tons, although the females are somewhat smaller. Their life span can be up to 70 to 80 years.

Habitat & Diet of Asian Elephant :
Asian elephants prefer to live in scrub forest, although their habitat can vary. The elephant can be found in deep jungle, but generally on the edge where open, grassy areas are accessible. They prefer areas that combine grass, low woody plants, and forest. Elephants are vegetarians, spending 16 hours a day collecting plant food from all levels. Their diet is at least 50% grasses, supplemented with leaves, twigs, bark, roots, and small amounts of fruits, seeds and flowers. Because elephants only use 40% of what they eat they have to make up for their digestive system's lack of efficiency in volume. An adult elephant can consume 300 to 600 pounds of food a day.

Distribution :
Asian elephants have four main species and ten sub species spread over the mainland of India, distributed in the South, Central, Northwest and Northeast regions in India.The southern tiger population is vividly distributed in the forests of Western and Eastern Ghats in the states of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The Tiger population in north western region spans over the Terai forest regions of Uttar Pradesh along the foothills of Himalayas. The north-eastern population is found at the Himalayan foothills of Bhutan and north-west Bengal eastwards into the states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Meghalaya.