24.10.2019
Proboscis types. The characteristic signs of the detachment are proboscis. Where and how do elephants live
At the end of the trunk there are only dorsal or dorsal and ventral grasping finger-like processes. The function of the trunk is diverse. It serves for breathing, smell, touch, helps with drinking and eating. An elephant picks grass, tree branches, fruits with its trunk and sends them to the mouth, sucks water into the trunk and then squirts it into the mouth. The limbs are high, columnar, five-fingered. The fingers are covered with a common skin, but visible from the outside. On the forelimbs 5, sometimes 4 hooves, on the hind legs - 3 or 4.
Elephant skin is grayish in color, has a significant thickness. Its outer surface is uneven, covered with epidermal tubercles of various thicknesses. The epidermis has a cellular inner surface. Hair in adults is sparse, bristle-like. In newborns hairline pretty thick. In the temporal region there is a specific skin gland, which produces an abundant secret of a liquid consistency with an unpleasant odor during estrus.
One pair of nipples - in the chest area, between the front legs. The skull of an elephant is huge, but somewhat shortened. The brain is the largest in terms of mass among land mammals.
Indian elephants are common in South Asia, and African elephants are common in Africa.
They inhabit forests and savannahs, sometimes tall grasses. Usually they do not go far from the water: Females, cubs and young males form herds of up to 30-400 heads. Adult males usually stay alone, sometimes joining herds. The size of the herd depends on the availability of food, water and disturbance. Active during daylight hours; rest during hot hours. They feed exclusively on plants, including leaves, fruits, bark, roots. Feeding migrations take place. They usually walk and can only run short distances. They swim well. Hearing is well developed, smell is excellent, vision is relatively weak. Sound communication is well presented.
Pregnancy from 20 to 22 months. The female brings one, rarely two cubs. The mass of the newborn is about 100 kg. Shortly after birth, the cub follows its mother. Milk is sucked by mouth. Lactation lasts about two years. Sexual maturity occurs around the 9-20th year. Life expectancy is usually 50-60 years.
Elephants were heavily hunted for their highly valued tusks. As a result of direct destruction and the indirect impact of human activities, the number has fallen sharply and, as a rule, elephants are now numerous only in protected areas. Asian elephants have long been used as working animals.
Proboscis, apparently, had common ancestors with sirens and hyraxes. But already from the Paleocene, each of these groups developed independently.
Proboscis - a detachment of mammals, which includes the elephant family and their extinct species relatives (mastodons, mammoths, dinoteria). hallmark the detachment is the presence of a trunk in all its representatives. Marshes became the distribution area of the ancestors of mammals. Therefore, as a result of evolution, they had a device for breathing in water - a trunk: its initial dimensions were quite small compared to today's elephant trunks. Later, the respiratory organ, equipped with powerful muscles, began to be used for grasping purposes, with its help, animals tore leaves and fruits from trees, grass, and on a hot day they made a shower from water or mud.
The trunk is a fused and elongated nose and upper lip. It is driven by about fifty thousand muscles.
Another feature that unites the squad is thick skin that resists water pressure, allowing the animal to breathe normally. Proboscis tusks are modified teeth: fangs or incisors. With their help, animals remove the bark from trees, dig up salt deposits in the ground, and also protect themselves from enemies. Elephants have two tusks, represented by incisors. An extinct species, the mastodons, had four. They grow all their lives; during the excavations, tusks were found that reached a length of 4 m.
At present, the proboscis order includes only the elephant family, which in turn is divided into two species: Asian and African elephants. These are the most large mammals, all members of the family are herbivores. The main habitat of animals are meadows, but due to their unpretentiousness in the choice of food, they can be found in desert areas, in forests, and in swampy areas. African elephants are slightly taller than their Asian relatives, females and males (in Asians only males) have tusks. Elephants have no hair. The tail is poorly developed. During the movement, the cub, in order to keep up with the herd, clings to the tail of an adult relative. Digest vegetable food intestinal bacteria help animals, but they cope with this task only by 60%.
Option 2
Proboscis are mammals that have a distinctive feature from other animals - a trunk. The only representatives of animals belonging to this class are elephants. There are many about them interesting facts that every connoisseur should know.
Elephants are one of a kind, they are considered giants because they are about 4 meters tall and weigh up to 7 tons. There are also smaller individuals, whose growth is up to 3 m, but the African elephant weighs about 8 tons and looks like a giant. The skin of elephants is thick - 2 cm, the skin of adults is wrinkled, without hairline. When a cub is born, it has hairline, which disappears over time.
Elephant's head round shape, his ears serve him not only as a means of perceiving sound, but they also protect the elephant from the heat, when it becomes necessary to cool down, he simply flaps his ears. Although the elephant is a gigantic animal, it walks silently, but it cannot jump.
The trunk plays a huge role, it performs a whole host of functions, for starters, it is worth noting that the trunk is equipped with a large number of muscles and tendons. When an elephant wants to bathe, he draws water into his trunk and waters himself during the heat. Also on the tip of the trunk are the lips and nose, unique, isn't it? An elephant gets food with its trunk, feeds itself, feeds its offspring.
Elephant tusks grow throughout their lives, so that the massiveness and length of the tusks can determine the approximate age of the animal. The elephant's tail is long, almost to the very ground, at the end of the tail there are dense long hairs in the form of a brush, just with this brush the elephant fights off flies.
Although the elephant is a giant, he is an excellent swimmer, if you look at his speed while running, he runs at speeds up to 50 km. per hour, and quietly goes 5 km. at one o'clock. These animals are among the centenarians, elephants live on average up to 65 years, in some cases even longer.
In captivity, elephants rarely breed because there are no favorable conditions for this, such as temperature regime and freedom. In the wild, an elephant can bring offspring every 4 years. By the age of 12, the female is ready to bear a baby, and the males reach sexual maturity by the 15th year of life. The female elephant bears the cub for 22 months, before giving birth, the female leaves her herd, but does not go far from it, several elephants go with her to protect her and the newborn baby from predators. Sometimes, if there are difficulties during childbirth, elephants help to stretch the baby. Basically, a baby is born alone, it is rare when you can find that an elephant gave birth to two elephants at once.
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Proboscidea (lat. Proboscidea) - a detachment of placental mammals, owe their name to their main hallmark- trunk. The only representatives of proboscis today are the elephant family (Elephantidae). Extinct proboscis families include mastodons (Mammutidae).
Proboscis are distinguished not only by their trunk, but also by unique tusks, as well as largest among all mammals on land. These peculiarities are by no means a hindrance, but, on the contrary, highly specialized adaptations. Once upon a time, many proboscis families lived on earth, some of which had four tusks. Today there is only a family of elephants in a very limited living space.
Proboscis formations were barely noticeable at the beginning and served proboscis ancestors living in swamps as a means to breathe underwater. Later, the trunks, with their many muscles, developed into finely sensitive grasping organs, which made it possible to pick both leaves from trees and grass in the steppes. Tusks during evolution reached 4 meters and had various shapes.
The African and Indian elephant are all that remain today from their many ancestors.
The head of an African elephant in profile looks sloping, in the form of a clearly defined angle; the ridge rises from the head to the shoulder blades, then drops and rises again to the hips.
At Indian elephant superciliary arches and a convex bump on the top of the head with a cleft in the middle are pronounced; the back in the middle is higher than in the area of the shoulder blades and hips.
Indian elephant
A powerful, massive animal, with a large broad-browed head, short neck, powerful body and columnar legs. The Indian elephant is smaller than the African counterpart. Its mass does not exceed 5 tons, and the height at the shoulders is 2.5-3 m. Unlike the African elephant, only males have tusks, but they are also 2-3 times shorter than the tusks of an African relative. The ears of the Indian elephant are smaller, stretched down and pointed.
Wild Indian elephants live in India, Pakistan, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Malacca, Sumatra and Sri Lanka. Due to the expansion of plantations and crops, the number of wild elephants is declining. Animals are killed as pests Agriculture despite the ban. The Indian elephant, like the African one, is listed in the IUCN Red List.
The Indian elephant lives in forest thickets, usually keeps in family groups of 10-20 animals, sometimes there are herds of up to 100 or more individuals. The leader of the herd is usually an old female.
Unlike the African relative, the Indian elephant is easily tamed and easy to train. In hard-to-reach swampy places, elephants are used as riding animals. Four people can fit on the back of an animal in a gazebo, not counting the driver sitting on the neck of an elephant. Elephants are able to carry up to 350 kg of cargo. Trained elephants not only carry logs in logging sites, but also stack them in a certain order, load and unload barges. Indian elephants are bought by zoos and circuses around the world.
Indian elephants are inferior in size to African bush elephants, but their size is also impressive - old individuals (males) reach a weight of 5.4 tons with a height of 2.5 - 3.5 meters. Females are smaller than males, weighing an average of 2.7 tons. The smallest is a subspecies from Kalimantan (weight about 2 tons). For comparison, the African savannah elephant weighs from 4 to 7 tons. The body length of the Indian elephant is 5.5-6.4 m, the tail is 1.2-1.5 m. The Indian elephant is more massive than the African one. The legs are thick and comparatively short; the structure of the soles of the feet resembles that of an African elephant - there is a special springy mass under the skin. There are five hooves on the front legs, four on the hind legs. The body is covered with thick wrinkled skin; skin color - from dark gray to brown. The thickness of the skin of an Indian elephant reaches 2.5 cm, but is very thin on inside ears, around the mouth and anus. The skin is dry and has no sweat glands, so caring for it is an important part of an elephant's life. Taking mud baths, elephants protect themselves from insect bites, sunburn and fluid loss. Dust baths, bathing and scratching on trees also play a role in skin hygiene. Often, depigmented pinkish areas are noticeable on the body of the Indian elephant, which give them a mottled appearance. Newborn baby elephants are covered with brownish hair, which is wiped off and thins with age, but even adult Indian elephants are more covered with coarse wool than African ones.
Albinos are very rare among elephants and are to a certain extent the object of worship in Siam. Usually they are only a little lighter and have a few even lighter spots. The best specimens were pale reddish-brown in color with a pale yellow iris and sparse white hair on the back.
The broad forehead, depressed in the middle and strongly convex laterally, has an almost vertical position; its bumps represent highest point body (an African elephant has shoulders). The most characteristic feature that distinguishes the Indian elephant from the African is the relatively smaller size of the auricles. The ears of the Indian elephant never rise above the level of the neck. They are medium in size, irregularly quadrangular in shape, with a slightly elongated tip and an upper edge turned inwards. The tusks (elongated upper incisors) are significantly, 2-3 times smaller than those of the African elephant, up to 1.6 m long, weighing up to 20-25 kg. During the year of growth, the tusk increases by an average of 17 cm. They develop only in males, rarely in females. Among the Indian elephants there are males without tusks, which in India are called makhna (makhna). Especially often such males are found in the north-eastern part of the country; the largest number tuskless elephants have a population in Sri Lanka (up to 95%)
Just as people are right-handed and left-handed, different elephants are more likely to use the right or left tusk. This is determined by the degree of wear of the tusk and its more rounded tip.
In addition to the tusks, the elephant has 4 molars, which are replaced several times during life as they wear out. When changing, new teeth do not grow under the old ones, but further on the jaw, gradually pushing the worn teeth forward. In the Indian elephant, the molars change 6 times during their life; the latter erupt by about 40 years. When the last teeth are worn down, the elephant loses the ability to eat normally and dies of starvation. As a rule, this happens by the age of 70.
The elephant's trunk is a long process formed by the nose and upper lip fused together. A complex system muscles and tendons gives it great flexibility and mobility, allowing the elephant to manipulate even small objects, and its volume allows you to collect up to 6 liters of water. The septum (septum), which separates the nasal cavity, also consists of numerous muscles. An elephant's trunk is devoid of bones and cartilage; the only cartilage is at its end, separating the nostrils. Unlike the African elephant, the trunk ends in a single dorsal finger-like process.
The differences between the Indian elephant and the African are a lighter color, medium-sized tusks that are available only in males, small ears, a convex humpbacked back without a "saddle", two bulges on the forehead and a single finger-like process at the end of the trunk. To the differences in internal structure 19 pairs of ribs are also included instead of 21, as in the African elephant, and structural features of the molars - the transverse plates of dentin in each tooth of the Indian elephant are from 6 to 27, which is more than that of the African elephant. There are 33 tail vertebrae instead of 26. The heart often has a double apex. Females can be distinguished from males by the two mammary glands located on the chest. The elephant's brain is the largest among land animals and reaches a weight of 5 kg.
Proboscis squad
(Prodoscidea)*
* proboscis detachment ungulate mammals, which now includes only 2-3 species from two genera. Proboscis are close to ladies and sirens and historically come from Africa. Modern proboscis - elephants - are the largest living land animals. They are distinguished primarily by an elongated muscular upper lip fused with the nose, which formed a trunk - an organ that elephants successfully use as a hand. Another unique feature is the device of molars adapted for grinding coarse plant food.
The proboscis are a declining group, the last representatives of a formerly numerous order of mammals; they serve as living witnesses of the former times of the universe, extant representatives of the bygone days of our planet.
Of the species of this detachment that inhabited the Earth, only two have survived to this day, but it is they who, obviously, connect the present with primitive world; to their family belonged those giants whose well-preserved corpses have been preserved for us for thousands of years Siberian ice.
Our elephants are distinguished by a long movable trunk and teeth, namely tusks, which are considered to be modified incisors. The body is short and thick, the neck is very short, the head is round and swollen due to cavities in the upper bones of the skull; rather high columnar legs have five fingers connected to each other and flat horny soles.
The most important organ of the elephant is the trunk - a continuation of the nose, characterized by mobility, sensitivity, with a finger-shaped process at the end. It serves simultaneously as an organ of smell, touch and grasp. The trunk consists of annular and longitudinal muscles, distributed, according to Cuvier, in 40 thousand separate bundles, allowing it not only to bend in every possible way, but also to stretch and contract. In the mouth, it replaces the missing upper lip, and for the animal itself, it is so important that the life of an elephant would be impossible without it. The structure of the body does not allow the elephant to lower his head to the ground, and therefore it would be difficult for the animal to eat if this amazing organ did not immediately serve him as a lip, finger, hand and whole arm. This trunk is attached to the frontal, maxillary, nasal and premaxillary bones of the flat facial surface of the skull; it is rounded at the top, flattened at the bottom and gradually tapering from the root to the end.
All other organs, even the sense organs, of the elephant are less remarkable. The eyes are small, with a phlegmatic but good-natured expression, on the contrary. very large and look like patches of skin. The fingers are so closely enclosed in a common skin that a separate movement of each of them is impossible. They are covered, however, with small, but strong, wide and flat, nail-like hooves that cover only the ends of the fingers. At Asian elephant on the front legs, five, on the hind legs, four such hooves, on the African - four in front, three in the back. It often happens that one of the hooves is missing, because it has fallen out and is completely hewn out due to the rapid growth of the others. The tail is of medium length, rather round, reaching to the knee joint and ending in a brush of very thick, hard, wire-like bristles.
Very wonderful teeth. In the upper jaw, the elephant has two extremely developed tusks, but there are no incisors or fangs, and usually only one large molar in each jaw. This tooth consists of a fairly significant number of individual enamel plates, which are interconnected by a special connecting substance. They form ribbon-like figures on the chewing surface of the Asian elephant, and diamond-shaped figures of the African elephant. When the root tooth is so worn out by chewing that it can no longer carry out its service, a new one is formed behind it, which gradually moves forward and enters into activity before the remainder of the previous one falls out. It was observed that such a change of teeth occurs 6 times during a lifetime, and therefore it can be said that an animal has up to 24 molars. Tusks that do not change grow continuously and therefore can reach considerable length and amazing weight.
In addition to the number of hooves, the shape of the head and the location of the enamel plates in the molars, Asian and African elephants also differ in that the former, despite the large skull, have relatively small ears and thin tusks, while the latter have very large ears and very thick tusks. In addition, most of the females of the first species do not have tusks at all, and a few have only rudimentary ones; in the second species, on the contrary, most of the females have rather large tusks, although generally less.
than in males. However, many male Asian elephants lack tusks; in Ceylon this is especially common: according to Becker, only one specimen in 300 delivers ivory. On the mainland, these toothless males, called "mukknaz", are not so common, but approximately in a ratio of 1:10. Of the well-armed, some lose their weapons by accident; in others, only one tooth sometimes develops: if it is the right tooth, then such an animal, according to Sanderson, is called "gunesh" by the name of the god of wisdom, and the Hindus give him divine honors. Single-toothed specimens are by no means rare among African female elephants, while among males they occur only as an exception. Sometimes in Africa one hears stories of elephants with double or triple tusks; Bans even talks about one elephant killed in 1856 south of the Zambezi, which had 9 fully developed tusks - 5 in the right, 4 in the left jaw. They were located one after the other and partly straight, partly bent down or back; the two largest pairs weighed approximately 30 kg each, the others were much smaller*.
* Similar phenomena in nature are called atavisms. The ancestors of the elephant had three incisors in each half of the jaw (of modern mammals, only marsupials have four incisors), two of which subsequently disappeared. But, perhaps in some situation, the anlages of these teeth that exist in the embryo of an elephant do not disappear, but cut through, forming teeth, although the appearance of an elephant with six tusks must be rather strange.
Looking at the areas in which elephants are found, the tusks, in shape, structure, and also in color, have features that are expressed so sharply that connoisseurs of ivory can, by examining piled teeth, determine with reasonable certainty from which country any specimens come.
The longest known tusks of living species of elephant come from Africa, and it is from the region of lakes. Westendarp has a tooth from central Africa 2.94 m long, and from the northern part Becker brought a tooth that, according to Sterndal, even has 3.27 m in length. These teeth, however, are thin and relatively light: for example, the first of them weighs only 44 kg. In the past, they say, teeth weighing 120-130 kg or more came across, but this is unlikely, judging by the size of the utensils in the collections and works of art made from ivory. It is clear that huge teeth must become the rarer, the faster the old ivory is exported from Africa and the more zealously hunted for elephants.
“Well-grown fangs,” writes Westerndarp, “usually up to 2 m long, rarely 2.5 m, and at the same time weighing 30-50 kg, in exceptional cases 75-90 kg. The heaviest of the teeth brought to Lately to Europe, was bought on the East Bank by Heinrich Meyer. Its length was 2.6 m, weight 94 kg **.
* * The largest known tusk of an African elephant reached 3.5 m in length and weighed 107 kg. Usually they are much smaller.
Both about the size of elephants and about the size of elephant teeth, incorrect information is often found even in special writings. So, for example, in the description of ancient objects made of ivory, which are in the British Museum, it is said that the teeth of elephants in the past should have been much larger, since at present there are no more plates 40.6 cm long and 14 .5 cm wide, which were then used for some work. This statement is not true, since records of this kind are still not unusual at the present time and are delivered annually in large quantities. The tooth mentioned above, weighing 94 kg, could even give plates 20 cm wide and 76 cm long. The heaviest, perfectly flawless pair of teeth was traded at Teta, on the Zambezi, in 1882; it weighed 144.5 kg, each tooth was 2.27 m long, and the largest girth in the middle of the tooth was 0.6 m. The most beautiful and longest pair of elephant teeth that ever came to Europe is in my collection; it weighs 101 kg, is 2.57 m long, completely free from defects, comes from Uganda and contains ivory worth 3,775 marks. In general, pairs of teeth of significant size are always a remarkable rarity in trade, since the tusks of the same elephant are not usually exchanged together. This is facilitated primarily by the fact that both teeth of one animal do not remain the property of a happy hunter, since on the basis of the hunting law prevailing in many areas of Africa, the tooth with which the killed elephant touches the ground must be given to the "master of the earth", that is, the foreman of the local tribe.
The tusks of the Asian elephant are much smaller than those of the African, and only rarely reach a length of more than 1.6 m and up to 20 kg of weight. However, as an exception, there are specimens that are not too inferior in terms of the length of the tusks. African elephants. The largest known tooth belongs to an elephant, which had only this healthy tooth, and the other was spoiled and broken; this elephant was killed in 1863 by Sir Victor Brooke and Douglas Hamilton in eastern Mysore. A healthy tooth had a length of 2.4 m, the largest girth of almost 0.43 m and a weight of 40.8 kg; it protruded 1.75 m out of the head. The left sick tooth was broken at a distance of 35 cm from the skull, the rest was still 0.99 m long, the largest girth was 0.5 m and the weight was 22.2 kg. A fresh tooth generally loses when it dries out, depending on the circumstances, up to approximately one tenth and even a ninth of its original weight.
Life of animals. - M.: State publishing house of geographical literature. A. Brem. 1958
See what the "Proboscis Detachment" is in other dictionaries:
The team name refers to main feature its constituent species: they all have a trunk. It is very difficult to notice the trunk of a live leech; in dead worms, it sometimes sticks out of the mouth. The detachment, in turn, is divided into two sharply ... ... Biological Encyclopedia
