The elephant is by right considered the largest animal,living on land. Its dimensions excite the imagination, since the person in comparison with him is just a short man. However, even among these animals there are those who clearly outnumber their brethren in size. So let's go to a small cognitive walk and find out: how much does the biggest elephant in the world weigh? Where does he live? And what kind of curious secrets does it hide?
The history of the origin of elephants goes to its rootsin those early times, when the great cooling was slowly approaching the earth. If you believe the latest research, the first elephant-like appeared about 1.6 million years ago. They were an accidental genetic error - a mutation that divided mastodons forever into two separate species.
In this case, over the years, elephant-likesuccumbed to evolutionary changes. They formed three separate subspecies. Namely, mammoths, Indian and African elephants. The first, unfortunately, could not live up to our days. But the other two now also walk in the familiar lands. But the most curious thing is that during all these long years they have not changed much.
As early as the last century,that all elephants are the same, regardless of the region in which they live. However, more recent studies have proved that this is not true. In fact, the largest elephant is African. An animal from the Black continent overtakes its Asian counterpart both in body weight and in height.
It should also be noted that the African elephantAlso divided into two large subspecies: savanna and forest. In this case, the first is larger. From this it follows that the largest elephant in the world is one that lives in the expanses of African savannahs. He is the owner of the title "the largest land animal of the planet".
Let's start, probably, with the smallestrepresentative of the elephant family - the Indian, or, as it is also called, the Asian elephant. This animal lives in Indonesia, Nepal, Thailand, India, Vietnam and China. On average, males of this species grow to 2.5-3 m in height, and their weight varies within the range of 4.0-4.5 tons. Females are much lower than their cavaliers - they rarely grow more than 2.4 m and weigh about 2-2.5 tons.
The African African elephant is similar in many ways to itsIndian relative. Especially it concerns its proportions. So, the males of this species grow up to 3 m in height, however, today such hard-to-find are rare. On average, forest elephants reach 2.6 m, and their weight ranges from 2.5 to 3 tons. Female have about the same proportions of the body and only slightly inferior to their knights.
As for the sowed subspecies, he is trulythe biggest elephant on the planet. These giants can grow up to 4 meters in height, and their maximum weight varies within 5-6 tons. The length of their body reaches 6-7 meters. Thus females, as well as at other subspecies, are much less than their cavaliers.
If you believe the old archives, then the largest waselephant, caught by hunters in Angola in the XIX century. Its weight was slightly less than 12.5 tons, and each tusk weighed at least 50 kilograms. However, given the prescription of the incident, it is rather difficult to affirm the veracity of these documents.
But the official data indicate that the mostthe big elephant is Yoshi. This is the name of the 32-year-old African giant who lives in the Safari park near the town of Romat-Gan. The weight of this animal is 6 tons, and its height is 3.7 meters. However, the elephant is still quite young, and therefore there is a high probability that over the next ten years Yossi will grow older.
Few know that:
