Latest news with #savanna
The Independent
12-08-2025
- Science
- The Independent
Tuesday is World Elephant Day. 5 things to know about the world's largest land mammals
Tuesday is World Elephant Day. Here are five things to know about the largest land animals on our planet. Tell them apart by their ears There are three species of elephants: the African savanna or bush elephant, the African forest elephant and the Asian elephant. The African savanna elephant and the Asian elephant are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The forest elephant is critically endangered. The easiest way to tell the difference among the species is the ears. African elephants have larger ears that are shaped, conveniently, like the African continent. African elephants also have two finger-like prehensile extensions at the tips of their trunks to grip things with, while Asian elephants have one. Biggest of the big The African savanna elephant is the biggest of the three species and the largest land animal on Earth. Adult males weigh around 5,000 to 6,000 kilograms, which is 11,000 to 13,000 pounds — or about six tons. Savanna elephants already weigh about 120 kilograms — 265 pounds — when they're born, heavier than your average NFL player. Trunks with thousands of muscles There are around 150,000 muscles in an elephant's trunk, making it an 'incredible piece of equipment,' according to Sean Hensman, an elephant specialist at the Adventures with Elephants sanctuary in South Africa. Because their trunks have no bones, elephants can curl or twist them in all sorts of directions, and even make them shorter or longer. They use them to suck up water to blow into their mouths and to pick up food, or just about anything else they need to do. Too heavy to jump Elephants can't jump. That's because of the enormous weight they are carrying. Elephants need at least three feet on the ground at any one time in order to move. They can, however, stand on their back legs if they need to reach food like fruits or leaves high on a tree. An elephant never forgets? One of the most popular presumptions is that elephants have an incredible memory. That is true, Hensman said. They have a huge temporal lobe — the part of the brain that controls memory. Elephants need a good memory of the locations of numerous food and water sources to survive in some of the harshest climates. ___
New York Times
07-05-2025
- Science
- New York Times
These Beautiful Birds Form Something Like Lasting Friendships
True friends, most people would agree, are there for each other. Sometimes that means offering emotional support. Sometimes it means helping each other move. And if you're a superb starling — a flamboyant, chattering songbird native to the African savanna — it means stuffing bugs down the throats of your friends' offspring, secure in the expectation that they'll eventually do the same for yours. Scientists have long known that social animals usually put blood relatives first. But for a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers crunched two decades of field data to show that unrelated members of a superb starling flock often help each other raise chicks, trading assistance to one another over years in a behavior that was not previously known. 'We think that these reciprocal helping relationships are a way to build ties,' said Dustin Rubenstein, a professor of ecology at Columbia University and an author of the paper. Superb starlings are distinctive among animals that breed cooperatively, said Alexis Earl, a biologist at Cornell University and an author of the paper. Their flocks mix family groups with immigrants from other groups. New parents rely on up to 16 helpers, which bring chicks extra food and help run off predators.
