The Growing Process of an Elephant
Have you ever seen an elephant? Did that enormous animal impress you? Actually, elephants are the largest land animals on earth. In record, the tallest elephant was about 4 m tall with the massive weight of 24,000 pounds. Generally speaking, elephants can be divided into 2 types by identifying their ears or trunks: African elephants have much bigger ears and 2 fingerlike features on their noses while Asian elephants have smaller ears and only 1 fingerlike feature on their noses. Both of them have similar growing process, which is made of 3 stages, including infancy, adolescence and adulthood.
Firstly, in the infancy stage, a baby elephant is tended carefully by mom. After 2 years of gestation period, mom elephant gives birth to the baby elephant which is about 200 pounds on average. Then, mom helps the new-born calf stand up so that it can drink its mother’s milk. Mom elephants might breastfeed their calves to 10 years. In addition to mom elephants, other female elephants in a herd also attribute to the comfort and protection of the calves, said Jennifer Mueller. While the elephant baby is born, they are capable of seeing, smelling, walking and gradually developing their motor skills. During this stage, though young elephants are born with many skills, they rely heavily on the mature females.
Second, in the stage of adolescent, elephants are under great influence of the increasing hormone. As Meyer (2015) points out, the stage of adolescent starts when an elephant is weaned, which might be between 5 to 10 age, and will eventually become mature at age of 17. Meyer also suggests that with the surge of hormone, male elephants become aggressive in this phase, and sometimes feel painful due to the temporal glands swell. Female elephants at this time are also under the great influence of increasing hormone, which stimulates their mothering and nurturing instincts. As a result, they start to take care of young calves. This would be vital and useful experiences for them because they might become mothers afterwards. In the adolescent stage, they are greatly affected by hormone and start to develop social skills.
Third, in the phase of adulthood, the elephants will reach their full size and strength and become independent. Also, after 20 years old, they start to mate. As Shoshani (2020) wrote, elephants identify others’ reproductive status by smelling. Actually, after becoming sexually matured, the male elephants will leave original herd and live solely or with other males in a small herd. On the contrary, female elephants stay in their original herds. Thus, they spent little time together. It’s only when mating or feeding that they stay with one another. Male and female elephants finally live in different social structures after they mature.
In sum, elephants endure three different stages to become mature: infancy, adolescence, and adulthood. Mom and other female elephants play an important role in young calves’ lives. As they grow bigger, they live under the impact of hormone and start to develop their social skills. Finally, they reach adulthood stage, becoming mature and independent. Elephants are elegant mammals which not only need mother elephants’ protection, but also need people’s protection as poaching arises. We should appreciate their beauty and protect them as well.
References
Mueller, J. Elephant Life Cycles.
Retrieved from:
https://animals.mom.com/elephant-life-cycles-6110.html
Meyer, A. (2015). Elephant Life Cycle – Adolescence.
Retrieved from:
https://www.elephantsforever.co.za/life-cycle-adolescence.html
Shoshani, J. (2020). Elephant.
Retrieved from: