One of my favourite animals :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by misombra
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Typically elephants are seen spraying water, and dirt on their back to keep cool and clean, as well as to rid themselves of insects. Elephants have a need to be by water, and are excellent swimmers. They often cross water ways by walking on the bottom and using their trunks as a snorkel.
The elephant skull has developed great size to support the massive trunk and the heavy dentition. Air spaces and sinuses fill the skull to make it lighter, and allow the elephant to communicate using a low growl referred to as an "infrasound" that carries for miles.
The huge ears act as radiators, to regulate temperature. Each ear contains many blood vessels, and the blood is cooled as the elephant flaps its ears.
The longevity of an elephant in the wild is 60 years and 80 years in captivity. In the wild only 1/2 reach 15 years old, and 1/5 survive to be 30. (Again, because of poachers)
- from, [url]http://www.chaffeezoo.org/animals/elephant.html[/url]
EDIT: Notice the both carcass on the left and right on the picture...
...elephant poaching remains a problem in some parts of Africa. In September, 1996, Michael Fay, an elephant researcher with the Wildlife Conservation Society, was flying his small airplane over a remote forest clearing just outside the Nouabale-Ndoki National Park in northern Congo when he spotted a cluster of elephant carcasses. Deciding to investigate further, Fay returned the next day by helicopter, accompanied by a television camera crew.
Fay, who had worked with Cynthia Moss and the African Wildlife Foundation to help establish the park in 1993, found a scene of slaughter: there lay more than 300 elephant bodies, all with their tusks hacked off. Cows, calves, and juveniles had been indiscriminately left to die by poachers supplying the illegal ivory trade. Two months later, Fay found the remains of 1,000 more dead elephants nearby.
Poachers killed whole families.
Taking action into his own hands, Fay chased poachers out of the forest by destroying their camps. He also met with the local village leaders to solicit their help in ending the killings. By the spring of 1997, Fay and his colleagues had stopped illegal hunting of elephants in the Nouabale-Ndoki region. He and Andrea Turkalo, another researcher for the Wildlife Conservation Society, continue to monitor and protect elephants in the Congo basin.
-from, [url]http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/elephants/poaching.html[/url]
Birds - Form and Function :)
thx tone, yeah, poaching is a huge problem
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Many seabirds, like albatrosses, have long, narrow pointed wings for gliding long distances over the ocean into the ocean winds. The length generates lots of lift, while the narrow, pointed shape helps reduce drag while gliding.
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Long, broad eagle wings have a large surface area for soaring on rising warm air currents. The spaces between the feathers at the end of the wing help reduce drag and are used for fine control at slow speeds. Storks, pelicans, and hawks have wings similar in shape.
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Short rounded wings allow pheasants rapid takeoffs, good maneuverability, and short glides. Many forest birds have small rounded wings that are good for quick, sharp turns while flying among trees.
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Similar to a high speed jet, swallows have relatively small, narrow, tapering wings. These wings can be flapped rapidly to provide speed with little drag. The fastest flyers in the bird world, falcons and swifts, have wings of this shape.
-from, [url]http://www.nhm.org/birds/guide/pg018.html[/url]
