What is the difference between african and indian elephants

The cracks are formed by the outermost layer of skin getting thicker and bending, until the brittle skin layer fractures under the strain. The African elephant skin left has visible cracks, unlike the Asian elephant. All elephants have 5 toes on each foot, but not every toe has a nail. The number of toenails varies between the African bush elephant, African forest elephant, and Asian elephant:. The two most significant of these physical differences are:. The number of ribs an individual elephant has varies from animal to animal, but African elephants tend to have more ribs than the Asian species, with up to 21 pairs of ribs vs the Asian elephants average of 20 pairs of ribs.

All elephant teeth are pre-molars or molars. In contrast, Asian elephant teeth have a compressed diamond-shaped tooth profile. Aside from these 10 physical differences, there is a big difference between African and Asian elephants in range and diet:.

African elephants range across the rainforests of West and Central Africa, and through the savannas and deserts of Africa. Both species of elephants eat a wide variety of plant matter found in their ranges, but there are differences in their diets. Whereas African elephants act as ecological filters by breaking tree saplings and stripping them of their foliage, Asian elephants are daintier eaters, preferring grasses, bamboo, and palms to tree saplings.

Read more about what elephants eat. In theory, elephants are amongst the longest living animals , and live longer than any other land mammal aside from humans.

Due to their size and physiology African and Asian elephants have different expected lifespans in the wild:. What do you think — any differences between the elephant species that surprised you?

Or any more differences between them we should add to this list? Let us know in the comments section below! Please log in again.

The login page will open in a new tab. The lower lips of the two species also differ, being long and tapered in Asian elephants and short and round in Africans. It is said that you can tell where an elephant comes from by looking at the size of his ears. African ears are like a map of Africa and Asian ears smaller like the shape of India.

African ears are much bigger and reach up and over the neck, which does not occur in Asian elephants. In general, African elephants have more ribs than the Asian species, though the number of ribs varies in individual animals. African elephants have up to 21 pairs, Asians up to All African elephants, male and female, have tusks — whereas only some male Asian elephants have tusks. African tusks are generally bigger. The trunk tip is a major difference between the species. The African trunk has two distinct fingers which it uses to pick up and manipulate objects.

In African elephants, both sexes generally but not always exhibit tusks. African elephants utilize their long trunks and four large molars to break down and consume a large bulk of plants, shrubs, twigs, and branches. In particular, they use their trunks to strip leaves, break branches, dismantle tree bark, unearth roots, drink water, and even bathe. Without their trunks, these elephants would find their everyday routine of bathing, drinking, and eating considerably more difficult.

Their molars, aiding in the consumption and digestion process, measures nearly 10 cm wide and 30 cm long, gradually withering away until the age of They cannot interbreed and produce healthy offspring due to significant differences in genetic code.

The genetic differences however are so great that they actually cannot be interbred. The only known crossbreed between an African and an Asian elephant was born in Chester Zoo in The bull calf, Motty, died, despite intensive nursing care, two weeks after its birth.

Its father was the African bull, Jumbolino, and its mother the Asian elephant cow, Sheba. The two major types of African elephants are about as genetically distinct from each other as the Asian elephant is from the extinct woolly mammoth.

The population of the African bush elephants continues to gradually decrease because of hunting, habitat fragmentation, etc. It has been reported that their current rate of decline is eight percent per year, mostly due to poaching. In most parts of the world this species is labeled as an endangered species.

On average scale there is a decline of , elephants based on the sudden increase of human populations occupying their habitats. Estimates show the entire species could possibly go extinct in a decade. Areas found in Gabon and Congo are considered to contain the largest number of the African bush elephant, while in parts of Central African Republic, the species is entirely wiped out. The IUCN monitors the elephant's population regularly to understand what conservation methods are effective.

The decline is beginning to show greatly across various countries. The pre-eminent threats to Asian elephants today are loss, degradation and fragmentation of habitat, leading in turn to increasing conflicts between humans and elephants.