Talk:Elephant

Tuskless Elephant Population Increasing?

Every now and then, I come across articles online saying that elephants' tusks are disappearing/getting shorter due to poaching. Can anyone tell me if this is true? Because I just returned from Kruger National Park, South Africa and I saw plenty of elephants during my stay, all with long, perfectly healthy tusks. User:Dinolover45, 13:31, 5 April 2010

Sources? 203.11.71.124 (talk) 08:37, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Here are a few I found searching Google for "tuskless elephant evolution":

• World: Africa Elephants 'ditch tusks' to survive - BBC
• Tuskless elephants evolving thanks to poachers - China Daily
• The Tuskless Elephant: A Case of Human-Driven Natural Selection? - paper from Allie Weill at the University of Chicago, lists sources which might be useful
• How humans are forcing other species to evolve - Grist (magazine)

So, there are reports that tusklessness is increasing in both African and Asian elephants under pressure from poaching, but I would like to see at least one article from a peer-reviewed science journal on the subject. -- Donald Albury 12:49, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit request from Aarmstrong128, 27 August 2011

Section = Social behavior

New text (maybe at the end of the section): The matriarchal society of elephants may be a recent adaptation (since perhaps 1930) to the arrival of firearms. In West with the Night, Beryl Markham describes elephant herds containing multiple adult males as well as females. She further describes how the females attempted to hide the males (hunted disproportionately for their tusks) from hunters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_with_the_Night

Aarmstrong128 (talk) 15:33, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Not done: Wikipedia cannot be used to cite itself. Topher385 (talk) 17:38, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Please read a little more carefully. I'm not using Wikipedia to cite itself. I'm using Wikipedia's internal link to the book. Would you rather I just listed the book's title? (Seems worse to me.)

Done. Thanks, and sorry for the misunderstanding following your first request. It would be great if you could tell us which page Markham's suggestion is recorded, as it's hard for a reader to verify something from a 293 page book. I think it would be page 207 or 208. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 13:27, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. That looks nice. What if we say the reference is pages 205 and following (205ff)? I actually heard a recording of the book, so it's harder than normal to come up with the page number. Reading in Google Books suggests that 205-208 is the right section though. As I recall, there were a couple of other sections that also supported the idea of multiple males in a herd with females.

Thanks. "ff" notation doesn't seem to be common in Wikipedia, so I just added 205–208. Not perfect, but enough for a reader to verify, which is the important thing. Cheers, Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 13:14, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Intelligence (brain) section

What's overall most informative when comparing brains between different animal species is brain size relative to body size, but this is not even mentioned... AnonMoos (talk) 08:00, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Edit request:: 03/12/2011

Under the 'Skin' section there is a clause that does not make sense. It reads: 'and local herds will often come too close over the right to use these limited resources.' It should probably read 'and local herds will often come to blows over the right to use these limited resources'. In other words because there are limited resources the elephants will fight each other for water. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.193.222.243 (talk) 15:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

First few words

"Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae". Why not "The elephant is a large land mammal in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae"? Our article is entitled "Elephant", not "Elephants", and other articles on high-profile mammals (e.g. Giraffe, Horse, Hippopotamus) get the singular. Nyttend (talk) 02:20, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Sounds sensible to me DrChrissy (talk) 16:33, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Trunks

If elephants can breathe through their trunks how come when they suck up water with them, the water doesn't go into their lungs? Is there a flap to stop it or do they just control it or something?

-Megan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.248.226.12 (talk) 15:56, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

How come when you suck water up with a straw, the water doesn't go into your lungs? Is there a flap to stop it or do you just control it or something?--Mr Fink (talk) 16:19, 16 January 2012 (UTC)