African bush elephant
| African bush elephant | |
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| Loxodonta africana (Blumenbach, 1797)
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The African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana) is the larger of the two species of African elephant.[2] The bull males can weigh 13000 pounds and stand 13 feet tall at the shoulder.[3]
The population of bush elephants has drastically declined in the last thirty years. It is hunted for its ivory and meat. Protection by game wardens has been only partly successful.
This large elephant is well adapted to the grassland plains of East Africa, and it is sometimes called the African savannah elephant.
The African bush elephant occurs in Sub-Saharan Africa including Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Angola.
It moves between a variety of habitats. These include subtropical and temperate forests, dry and seasonally flooded grasslands and woodlands, wetlands and agricultural land from sea level to mountain slopes. In Mali and Namibia, it also lives at times in desert areas.
References
[change | change source]- ↑ African Elephant Specialist Group (2004). Loxodonta africana. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006. Database entry includes a range map and a lengthy justification of why this species is vulnerable
- ↑ Shoshani, Jeheskel et al 2005. Mammal species of the world. 3rd ed, 2 vols, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 91. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0
- ↑ Larramendi A. 2016. Shoulder height, body mass and shape of proboscideans. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 61 (3): 537–574. [1]
