Niche of African Elephants

Elephants fill an essential niche in their ecosystems. They can dig holes in dry riverbeds, creating watering holes for large animals; and their footprints collect rainwater, creating watering holes for smaller animals.

Interspecific Interactions That Affect The African Elephants

In Eritrea, a country in the Horn of Africa, olive baboons and elephants have formed a symbiotic relationship. The baboons drink from water holes dug by the elephants, and the elephants rely on baboons sitting in the treetops to alert them to danger.

Oxpeckers are birds that land on elephants, where they eat lice, ticks, and other parasites living on elephants' skin and hair. This symbiotic relationship benefits the elephant by removing irritating pests that can spread disease, and the oxpecker also benefits by getting an easy meal.

African Elephants have interspecific interactions with predators, which try to eat them. This is known as Predation

Density-Dependent Factors

competition for resources

parasitism by insects and diseases might limit their numbers.

Density-Independent Factors

frequent droughts and low annual rainfall reduce food and water availability for elephant, thus leading to increased elephant mortality and affecting elephant dispersal patterns.

The elephant can live in temperatures of 0-50 C

Impact of Human Activities on African Elephant

Many of the conflicts revolve around the growth in human population. As this increases, urbanisation occurs, and develops; leading to a loss in habitats for elephants and other wild life. For such large land animals this can cause many problems.

Conservation Status of the African Elephants

The IUCN Red List, which lists all rare species, classifies African elephants as Vulnerable. This means the species faces a high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future.

Solutions for Improving/Maintaining African Elephants Conservation Status

One solution to maintain African elephants conservation status is to ban hunting elephants for ivory, and to crack down on poachers.

Fun Facts Mother Fucker

Only one mammal cant jump the elephant.

Elephants are the largest land animals in the world.

Elephants have the longest pregnancy of all the animals. It takes a female 22 months from conception to give birth

Elephants spend about 16 hours a day eating

They consume as much as 300-495 pounds of food per day

They have the largest brains in the animal kingdom

Kingdom: AnimaliaSubkingdom: Bilateria Infrakingdom: Deuterostomia Phylum: ChordataSubphylum: VertebrataInfraphylum: Gnathostomata Superclass: Tetrapoda Class: Mammalia Subclass: TheriaInfraclass: EutheriaOrder: ProboscideaFamily: Elephantidae Genera & species:Loxodonta africana(African savannah elephant),Loxodonta cyclotis(African forest elephant),Elephas maximus(Asian elephant)