Tusked One

The **Tusked Ones**, also known as the broad-footed pachyderm, is the largest living terrestrial animal in the savanna, is the only living species of the genus Elephas and is distributed throughout the Jungle de Rioan subcontinent, with bulls reaching a shoulder height of up to 3.96 m and a body mass of up to 10.4 t.

## **Characteristics**

In general, the Jungle de Rioan tusked one is smaller than any other native tusked one and has the highest body point on the head. The back is convex or level. The ears are small with dorsal borders folded laterally. It has up to 20 pairs of ribs and 34 caudal vertebrae. The feet have more nail-like structures than those of tusked ones—five on each forefoot, and four on each hind foot. The forehead has two hemispherical bulges.

### Size

When fully-grown, males are about 2.75 - 3m (9.0 -9.84 ft) tall at the shoulder and 2 - 6 t in weight, while females are smaller at about 2.40 m (7.9 ft) at the shoulder and 2.7 t (3.0 short tons) in weight. Length of body and head including trunk is 5.5–6.5 m (18–21 ft) with the tail being 1.2–1.5 m (3.9–4.9 ft) long.

### Trunk

Tusked ones use their trunks for breathing, watering, feeding, touching, dusting, sound production and communication, washing, pinching, grasping, defence and offence. The length may vary from 1.5 to 2 m (59 to 79 in) or longer depending on the species and age. Four basic muscle masses—the radial, the longitudinal and two oblique layers—and the size and attachments points of the tendon masses allow the shortening, extension, bending, and twisting movements accounting for the ability to hold, and manipulate loads of up to 300 kg (660 lb). Muscular and tendinous ability combined with nervous control allows extraordinary strength and agility movements of the trunk, such as sucking and spraying of water or dust and directed airflow blowing.

### Tusks

Tusked ones are named specifically after their tusks, having them being naturally and extremely sharp. Tusks serve to dig for water, salt, and rocks, to debark and uproot trees, as levers for maneuvering fallen trees and branches, for work, for display, for marking trees, as a weapon for offence and defence, as trunk-rests, and as protection for the trunk.

### Skin

Skin colour is usually yellowish-grey, they possess short fur along the back of their trunk which stops near the bottom and also occurs along the front of the face, head, and the back of the body which stops along the sides and upper parts of the legs. They also possess a mane starting at the front of the forehead and runs down the back stopping above the tail which is similar in appearance to a modern giraffe. Their wrinkled skin is movable and contains many nerve centres. Its folds increase surface area for heat dissipation. They can tolerate cold better than excessive heat.

## **Distribution and habitat**

Tusked ones inhabit grasslands, tropical evergreen forests, semi-evergreen forests, moist deciduous forests, dry deciduous forests and dry thorn forests, in addition to cultivated and secondary forests and scrublands.

## **Behaviour and ecology**

Tusked Ones are crepuscular. They are classified as megaherbivores and consume up large amounts of plant matter per day. They are generalist feeders, and are both grazers and browsers. They are known to feed on at different plant species, such as the legume, palm, sedge and true grass families. They browse more in the dry season with bark constituting a major part of their diet in the cool part of that season. They drink at least once a day and are never far from a permanent source of fresh water.

Asian elephants are recorded to make three basic sounds: growls, squeaks and snorts. Growls in their basic form are used for short distance communication. During mild arousal, growls resonate in the trunk and become rumbles while for long-distance communication, they escalate into roars. Low-frequency growls are infrasonic and made in many contexts. Squeaks come in two forms; chirpings and trumpets. Chirping consists of multiple short squeaks and signal conflict and nervousness. Trumpets are lengthened squeaks with increased loudness and produced during extreme arousal. Snorts signal changes in activity and increase in loudness during mild or strong arousal. During the latter case, when an elephant bounces the tip of the trunk it creates booms which serve as threat displays. Elephants are able to distinguish low-amplitude sounds.

Rarely, groundivores have been recorded attacking and killing calves and weak or sick tusked ones, especially if the calves become separated from their mothers, stranded from their herd, or orphaned. Adults are largely invulnerable to natural predation. When under attack, they tend to stampede it a somewhat formulated order.