LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Elephant: Forest Elephant
built 647 days ago
Elephant dung consists largely of fiber that passes undigested through its comparatively small system. To compensate, adults consume and quickly process vast amounts: c. 330 Ib/day (150 kg/day). Grass and herbs are mainstays in rainy season when elephants wander widely over the savanna; foliage and other browse are important in dry season when they feed more in forests, near water. Elephant trails that once crisscrossed the continent were the roadways used by human travelers. Many of today's highways are simply widened and paved trails engineered by elephants.
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Elephant painting of the northern, or Lampang school tends to be lyrical and expressive, characterized by broken brushwork, curvilinear forms, and bold, clear, primary colors. In the central Thai, or Ayutthaya school, elephants and mahouts prefer darker, cooler colors such as deep violet, black, and forest green, which they apply with broad, vigorous brushstrokes that sweep across the canvas from edge to edge. Elephants of the southern, or Phuket school tend toward saturated tertiary colors like mustard, plum, and magenta, mixed on the surface of the paper with broad, gentle, curvy brushstrokes.
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An adult male savannah elephant -- the largest land mammal in the world -- weighs about 12,000 pounds and stands roughly 10 feet tall at the shoulder. The smaller forest elephant weighs 10,000 pounds at most. And unlike savannah elephants' curved tusks, forest dwellers' are small and straight, designed for negotiating routes through dense foliage. Both elephants do possess the same tough hide (the Latin name for elephant is "pachyderm," or "thick-skinned"). But while their skin may be durable, elephants still need protection from insects and the hot African sun. Wallowing in a mud bath cools down an elephant as well as provides an extra layer of cover.
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The other postulated species is the Forest Elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis). Compared with the Savanna Elephant, its ears are usually smaller and rounder, and its tusks thinner and straighter and not directed outwards as much. The Forest Elephant can weigh up to 4,500 kg (10,000 lb) and stand about 3 m (10 ft) tall. Much less is known about these animals than their savanna cousins because environmental and political obstacles make them difficult to study. Normally, they inhabit the dense African rain forests of central and western Africa, though occasionally they roam the edges of forests and so overlap the territories of the Savanna elephants and breed with them. In 1979, Iain Douglas-Hamilton estimated the continental population of African elephants at around 1.3 million animals.[15] This estimate is controversial and is believed to be a gross overestimate,[16] but it is very widely cited and has become a de facto baseline that continues to be incorrectly used to quantify downward population trends in the species.
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Forest elephant males only get to be about 8 feet in height while large savanna elephants can reach 13 feet. Their ears are rounded and their tusks are straight and thin with a pinkish tinge to the ivory. The lower jaw is longer, giving the forest elephant a long, narrow face. Forest elephants ... live in smaller family groups. Forest elephants are also darker than savanna elephants.
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The Asiatic elephant inhabits the forest-lands of India, Burma, the Malay Peninsula, Cochin China, Ceylon and Sumatra. Elephants from the last-named islands present some variations from those of the mainland, and have been separated under the names of E. zeylonicus and E. sumatranus, but they are not more than local races, and the Ceylon animal, which is generally tuskless, may be the typical E. maximus, in which case the Indian race will be E. maximus indicus. The appearance of the Asiatic elephant is familiar to all. In the wild state it is gregarious, associating in herds of ten, twenty or more individuals, and, though it may under certain circumstances become dangerous, it is generally inoffensive and even timid, fond of shade and solitude and the neighbourhood of water. The height of the male at the shoulder when full grown is usually from 8 to lc, ft., occasionally as much as II, and possibly even more. The female is somewhat smaller.
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Forest Elephant