African Elephant is one of the official National animals of South Africa. The scientific name of the African Elephant is Loxodonta africana. South Africa’s national animal, African Elephant is natively African elephants live in sub-Saharan Africa, the rain forests of Central and West Africa and the Sahel desert in Mali, the countries are occurring like; Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, South Africa, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Namibia, Rwanda Ivory coast, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, and Uganda, , Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The African Elephant is the largest land mammal in the world. The legislators of South Africa designated the African Elephant as the national animal of South Africa.
National animal of South Africa Facts
- Common Name: Elephant or African Elephant
- Scientific Name: Loxodonta africana
- Lifespan: 65 – 75 years
- Length: Length of body and head including trunk is 6 to 7.5 meters
- Weight: Female elephants can range from 2,000 to 3,500kg while males are 4,500 to 6,100kg.
- Height: 5-14 ft at shoulders, females of all subspecies are smaller than males.
- Cubs: The female elephant give birth of one calf after a gestation period of 18–22 months, occasionally it may twins.
- Color: They are usually grey in color, and may be wearing a veil by soil due to dusting and wallowing.
- Diet: The African Elephants are herbivorous animals meaning that they only eat plants and plant matter in order to gain all of the nutrients that they need to survive. They eat grasses, roots, fruit and bark. They use their tusks to pull the bark from trees and dig roots out of the ground.
- Behavior: The African elephant follows strict migration routes that are determined by the monsoon season. The eldest elephant of the herd is responsible for remembering the migration route of its herd. Adult females and calves may move about together as groups, but adult males disperse from their mothers upon reaching adolescence. Bull elephants may be solitary or form temporary ‘bachelor groups.
South Africa’s national animal, Elephant has separate names of both male and female. They are identified as; the females are called “cow.” The males are known as bull, and the babies name calf. Bulls approach females and endeavors to use their chest to stroke her throughout the courtship process. Bulls have a fight in order to mate, by chasing the females if they retreat. When females stop retreating, they will join the bulls in stroking each other with their trunks. The courtship continues by females surrendering their hindquarters to the males. They breed year-round with no seasonal differences. The females have giving birth of a single child after a gestation period of 22 months. They breed once in every 3-9 years, and will give birth to an average of four calves in their lifetime. The elephants have played a significant role in manual labor, war, royal iconography, and the tourism industry. For thousands of years, elephants were captured and trained to be a form of transport and heavy labor.
South Africa’s national animal, African elephants have the very distinctive communication system. They have communicating acoustically with others species. They can make a diversity of calls including trumpet, roar, rumble, bark, snort, and grunt. The trumpet, roar, or growl is the signs of aggression while “soft chirp” shows submission or terrorization. Newborn elephants have gurgle during play and squeal when scared. They can hear any one of these calls from more 2km away. Female African elephants are social animals that live in herds of 6 to 70 members. These herds have a matriarchal order and consist of females (cows) and their young. The leader of this herd is inclined to be the largest and dominant. Males (bulls) tend to live in a herd if they are not old enough to go out on their own or for mating purposes. Bulls prefer to lead a life in solitary or with a few other bulls.
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