AFRICAN ELEPHANT VS ASIAN ELEPHANT - Who Will Be The King?

African Elephant vs Asian Elephant Who would win a fight between these two giant animals? Elephants are ecosystem engineers and play a vital role in their native habitats, helping maintain the rich biodiversity of the spaces they share with other wildlife. Though elephants are native to only Africa and Asia, they hold significant cultural and symbolic meaning around the world. The African elephant is the largest animal walking the earth. They are easily recognized by their trunk that is used for communication and handling objects, and their large ears allow them to radiate excess heat. The Asian elephant is a species of elephants distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It is one of the largest living creatures on the planet and is seen in numerous zoos across the world. Their population is declining rapidly mostly because of habitat loss and poaching for illegal trade. Size and Description Currently, African elephants are the largest terrestrial organism. Male elephants are larger, ranging from 9,900 to 13,400 pounds in mass 4,500 to 6,100 kilograms and standing 10.5 to 13.1 feet at shoulder height 3.2 to 4 meters. Females are generally smaller. Males are broader with a curvy build. Both sexes have two thick ivory tusks which are curved and can reach up to 11.5 feet in length, 3.5 meters. African elephants have muscular trunks that are able to grab objects and can be used for breathing purposes. They can grab objects due to the unique shape at the end of the trunk. Their sizable ears are triangular and can help keep them cool in the hot summer months. African elephants have creased, grey skin covered with papillae. Asian elephants have grey skin that is covered with hair. In adults, this hair is sparse, while calves have thicker brown hair. There is a large degree of sexual dimorphism in elephants. The males are much larger than the females. Males have a height of 7.9 to 9.8 feet 2.4 to 3 meters, with a body mass of 7,700 to 13,200 pounds 3,500 to 6,000 kilograms. Males have tusks which are an elongation of the second upper incisors, while females lack tusks. Asian elephants have one finger-like projection at the tip of the trunk, differing from African elephants which have two finger-like projections. Asian elephants have large flat ears, but they are smaller than the ears of Loxodonta. Asian elephants have four hooves on the hind foot, while African elephants have only three hooves. Range and Habitat The range of African elephants is patchily distributed across central and southern Africa in the Ethiopian region. Remnant populations exist as far northwest as Guinea-Bissau and as far northeast as Ethiopia. Disjunct populations exist southward into northern South Africa and include contiguous populations in Gabon, Tanzania, Botswana, and Zambia. African elephants are found in many habitats of Africa, such as savannas, rainforests, woodlands, scrub forests, occasionally deserts, and beaches. However, due to poaching threats protected sanctuaries are their main habitats. Within these sanctuaries, these elephants will inhabit areas that have sources of water and abundant vegetation for foraging. Historically, Asian elephants had a geographic range of 9 million square kilometers across a large part of Asia. This range extended as far west as current-day Iraq, as far north as the Yangtze River in China, and across the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, including the islands of Sri Lanka and Sumatra. The current geographic range is 500,000 square kilometers, which is only about 5% of the historical range. This range consists of small discontinuous areas in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Asian elephants live in a variety of habitats in the tropical region, including grasslands, tropical evergreen forests, moist deciduous forests, and scrub forests. Food Habitats African elephants have a herbivorous diet consisting of tree foliage, fruits, herbs, grasses, and wood. Their source of fiber comes from chewing on bark, but not digesting the bark itself. In order to obtain bark or roots, African elephants will overturn a tree for easier access. Using their trunks as a temporary container or holding, African elephants use their trunks to gather water and shoot it into their mouths. They must consume around 50 gallons 190 liters of water every day in order to stay hydrated. Asian elephants are herbivores and spend about three quarters of each day eating or moving toward a food or water source. Feeding is not continuous, with three principal feeding bouts in the early morning, afternoon, and night. They feed primarily on grasses, but also consume large amounts of browse, including leaves, roots, vines, twigs, shoots, and bark, as well as fruit. Cultivated crops such as bananas and sugarcane are also a favored food, placing them in conflict with farmers. Behavior Savannah elephants live in a rather complex social hierarchy. These animals gather into family units, consisting of about 10 females and their offspring. Reaching maturity, male calves usually leave the family unit, forming bachelor herds or living solitarily. As a general rule, males socialize with these family groups only when mating. Meanwhile, several family herds may gather together, making up a clan. Each clan is dominated by a female matriarch, and can consist of as many as several hundred elephants. African bush elephants are very careful and protective animals. Hollow mothering is a common practice in this species. Females can raise calves of other females of their herd. Asian elephants are very communicative mammals. As a general rule, they live in herds, consisting of more than 20 females. The oldest female leads the group in its movement routes, searching for food and water sources. Male elephants, on the contrary, lead solitary lives. From time to time, though, they send and receive messages from the herds over huge distances by means of high-frequency sounds, imperceptible to the human ear. Asian elephants are not at all territorial. These giant mammals display expressions and signs of joy, sadness, grief, anger, or playfulness, and are outstandingly intelligent. Now if we put these two elephants face to face, what will happen? A lot of people want to know that who between these mighty beasts has the potential to win the fight. We have gone through both the Asian and African elephant's facts, characteristics, and conduct. If these two species of elephants meet, if one or the other felt threatened, the dominant one, normally the larger one, would establish its dominance, and the other one would accept that. This is what likely would happen in the wild, where there was a matriarch in charge, or a big bull with some authority. If they met in a place like a zoo, where the herd structure would not be as strong, there would probably be no perceived threat, and they will become friends. All elephants are very intelligent and have a wide range of genuine emotions. Empathy is something that all elephants openly possess. The most important weapon of an elephant battle is the tusk of the elephant, the one who will have longer tusks than the other will also have the key to victory. Asian elephants do not always have tusks. Instead, the African elephant always has, and can even be very long. In addition to superiority in size, African elephants also have longer legs that helps them to move faster in a battle. The African elephant is larger and more aggressive, so it's likely they will emerge victorious in any sort of confrontation. They have more force and power than Asian elephants because of their habitat and surroundings. They build them strong from decades as in Africa they have to walk miles for water and food, as compared to Asia where there is a lot of food and water easily available in lush green forests. In the 90s, in the zoo in Buenos Aires, there were three elephants, two African and one Asian, all of them females. The Asian one was much bigger compared to the African ones. The reason was very simple. The Asian was older than the other two. Some years later, one of the Africans became a dominant female and her counterpart respected that, but the Asian did not, and so they engaged in a violent fight in which the African dominant female had the upper hand. They fought because of dominance, not because of being from different species. A really sad story and a reminder that elephants belong in the wild. Better for the Asian elephants to avoid meeting their larger cousins. If the Africans choose to attack, Asian elephants don't stand a ghost of a chance.