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Elephants in Sri Lanka |
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Elephant is the star of Sri
Lanka’s wild life and the largest land animal in the
island. among the two verities of African elephants (elephas
coxenda) and Indian elephants (elephas maximize maximize),
in Sri Lanka you find Indian elephants and considered to
be intelligent than their African counterparts hence domesticated.
Although there have been about 36000 elephants with the
start of this century it has reduced up to about 2000 due
to pouching. according to the recent records about 2000
of them scattered all over the country in small pockets
and about 500 of them are domesticated. |
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The Sri Lankan elephant is somewhat different
to the African elephant where firstly it has much smaller ears.
The profile of it's back, is convex (males) or straight and level
(females), as the case may be,unlike that of the African elephant,
which is concave. Thus Sri Lankan male elephants have well rounded
backs which taper downwards steeply, while the females have
straight flat box-shaped profiles.
Another less obvious difference between the African and the Asian
(Sri Lankan) elephant is the tip of the trunk. The Asian species
has two finger-like protrutions while the African has one. The
long and flexible trunk can weigh up to 125 - 200 kilograms (275 -
440 pounds). Generally, the Asian elephant has more hair on its
body than the African elephant, and it is especially conspicuous
in the newborn and juveniles. The body colour could be anything
from dark gray of different shades, to dark brown, depending on
the colour of the soil and mud where the elephants have bathed and
dusted.
Mature Sri Lankan elephants in particular
display heavy pinkish pigmentation of the skin around the ears,
face and trunk. The head of the male has large and pronounced
bulges; those of the female are smaller.Only males sprout tusks
rarely. (in some cases even longer and heavier than those of the
African species) |
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