Elephant Stamp

Country: Republic of Gabon

Continent: West Central Africa

Capital: Libreville

Elephant facts

Elephants stomp when they walk.
Elephants sleep standing up.
Sometimes baby elephants lie down to sleep.
Elephants bathe. Sometimes the spray dirt on themselves to get the parasites off. Sometimes they bathe in mud
Elephants live in herds.
Elephants cool off by fanning their ears. This cools the blood in their ears. That blood goes to the rest of their body and cools off the elephant.
Elephants poop 80 pounds in one day.
Elephants weigh 10,000 pounds. It would take 250 students to add up to 10,000 pounds.
Elephants collect food with their trunks.
Only grown up ladies and their babies live in the herds.
The daddy elephants leave the herd when they are 12 years old.
They fight with their tusks.
They eat grass and bark.
During the wet season they eat things low to the ground.
During the dry season they use their trunk to gather food from trees and bushes.
They suck up water into their trunks and shoot it into their mouths.
Elephants need lots of room to roam and eat. (Some of us think that this must mean they are not happy in the zoo or in the circus.)
They can run 24mph for short distances.

Pink Elephant parade

Elephants and their depression

...dont see if u love elephants...

Elephant swim

Haathi mera Saathi

Elephant dies at Irish Circus

August 2007
Kenya, a 19-year-old African elephant has died at Circus Sydney while on tour in Northern Ireland.
She was one of two elephants filmed chained and showing disturbed behaviours in 2006 when the circus was inspected by a CAPS investigator with a vet. Her companion, Max, was sent to a zoo in Germany to avoid an inspection by the Dublin SPCA in August 2006 and Kenya was alone since then.
Following a tip-off that Kenya had died, CAPS contacted the Ulster SPCA who sent an inspector to the circus along with a government vet. They discovered that Kenya had died sometime over the previous couple of weeks. The circus claimed she died of a heart attack after being scared by dogs, but has not provided any proof.
CAPS’ concerns about Kenya’s death were reported in the media across the whole of Ireland, along with our calls for an end to the use of all animals in circuses. A large story in the Irish Sunday Mirror quoted CAPS:
“The death of this young female elephant is shocking. We demand that all veterinary reports and post-mortem details of the elephant be made public so her death can be fully assessed. Kenya’s body was sent to a rendering plant – a sad end to a sad life. Kenya was born in the wild in Zimbabwe but she lived alone, chained and transported from town to town. She should never have been subjected to the life of a travelling circus.”
For more information on CAPS’ campaigns in Ireland see www.irishcircuses.org
The Captive Animals Protection society

Elephant in temple festival

A snap from a local temple in Thrissur,Kerala State,India.

Elephant puzzle

Note: cut only to the center of the hexagon, not all the way through.
The problem is to fold the above triangles into a tetrahedron so that the head, body, and tail of the elephant match up, and so that the remaining face is blank. The blank face can either be the actual blank triangle, or it can be the opposite face of one of the elephant-part triangles.
Solution: CLICK HERE

Elephant Emotion

ELEPHANT EMOTION
By Daphne Sheldrick D.B.E.: 1992 UNEP Global 500 Laureate.
CLICK HERE for more

Elephant soccer

Great Elephant Soccer

Elephant Foetus

From one-centimetre foetus to birth as a calf weighing 118 kilograms.Its astonishing !22-month gestation - the longest of any mammal.At 16 weeks, the foetus begins to look like an elephant as it develops a trunk. Two weeks later it is seen exercising its trunk and legs, and ears that already detect sound start to grow.By 12 months, the foetus is a replica of what will emerge 10 months later £ except it is just 45 centimetres long.

More Trivia

Elephants are the largest land-dwelling mammals on earth. They are brown to dark gray in color and have long, coarse hairs sparsely covering their bodies. They have very thick skin that keeps them cool. Elephant trunks serve as another limb. A fusion of the nose and upper lip, the trunk may contain more than 40,000 muscles that help the elephant use it to gather food and water. They also sport large ears and thick tree-trunk-like legs to support their great weight.

There are two distinct species of elephants: the Asian elephants (Elephas maximus). and the African elephant (genus: Loxodonta)

There are a number of differences between the two species – overall size, ear size, tusks and shape of the back and forehead among others. Of these two species, African elephants are divided into two subspecies (savannah and forest), while the Asian elephant is divided into four subspecies (Sri Lankan, Indian, Sumatran and Borneo). Asian elephants have been very important to Asian culture for thousands of years – they have been domesticated and are used for religious festivals, transportation and to move heavy objects.

Height: 5-14 ft at shoulders (males); females of all subspecies are smaller than males

Length: Up to 30 ft trunk to tail Weight 6,000-15,000 lbs (males)
Lifespan: Up to 70 years

Diet:Staples Grasses, leaves, bamboo, bark, rootsAlso known to eat crops like banana and sugarcane which are grown by farmers. Adult elephants eat 300-400 lbs of food per day.

Behavior:Elephants form deep family bonds and live in tight matriarchal family groups of related females called a herd. The herd is led by the oldest and often largest female in the herd, called a matriarch. Herds consist of 8-100 individuals depending on terrain and family size. When a calf is born, it is raised and protected by the whole matriarchal herd. Males leave the family unit between the ages of 12-15 and may lead solitary lives or live temporarily with other males.
Elephants are extremely intelligent animals and have memories that span many years. It is this memory that serves matriarchs well during dry seasons when they need to guide their herds, sometimes for tens of miles, to watering holes that they remember from the past. They also display signs of grief, joy, anger and play.
Recent discoveries have shown that elephants can communicate over long distances by producing a sub-sonic rumble that can travel over the ground faster than sound through air. Other elephants receive the messages through the sensitive skin on their feet and trunks. It is believed that this is how potential mates and social groups communicate.

Mating Season: Mostly during the rainy season

Gestation: 22 monthsLitter size 1 calf (twins rare) Calves weigh between 200-250 lbs at birth. At birth, a calf’s trunk has no muscle tone, therefore it will suckle through its mouth. It takes several months for a calf to gain full control of its trunk.

For desktop Picture

Size: 1024X768

Baby Elephant !!

Eight-day-old elephant in Chiang Mai, Thailand
Photo Courtesy: Jason Butler@elephant-photos.com

More elephant photos by Jason Butler CLICK HERE

Picnickers to finish their party before nightfall !

DHENKANAL: Elephants are found everywhere, along the road, in rural and urban habitations and even in places of tourist interest.

Fearing that presence of elephants in large numbers would lead to decline in tourism, the forest officials here launched an awareness campaign,'Be aware of elephants' to educate tourists about the alarming situation.

As thousands of tourists throng places like Kapilas, Saptasajya, Deer Park, Science Centre, Ganesh Khola and many other areas of importance the forest division alerted its officials to take care of the visitors.

Picnickers too have been warned to finish their party before nightfall.

To read more CLICK HERE

Mechanical Elephant !!

High quality close-up video of the elephant and its crew - Street performance by Royal de Luxe in London 6 May 2006


July 7th 2006 - French theatregroup Royal de Luxe brought their latest spectacle to Antwerpen in Belgium. This is an overview of the opening of the 4 day event.

Dont Mess with me !!

Elephant crazy South Indian Film Actor

Actor Jayaram in one of his film


Actor Jayaram and family with his own elephant "Kannan"

Quoted from a website about him.....

Everyone knows Jayaram’s craze for elephants from childhood. He grew up in Perumbavoor and Malayatoor, the beginning of forest area in Idukki district of Kerala. The Forest range office in Malayatoor was next to his family house and that’s how our hero got the chance to see wild elephants being tamed by domestic elephants!
Later Jayaram used to go for all temple festivals just to watch elephants. Finally after he became a star, he fulfilled his ambition to buy an elephant and named it Kannan. Jayaram has also done a few films which had elephants in them. And now his next film Aanachantham for director Jayaraj is being shot in Ottapalam.
In Aanachantham Jayaram plays the role of Krishna Prasad a crazy elephant lover who goes for all temple festivals with his elephant Mambally Arjunan. He literally lives and works for the elephant which creates problems in the joint family that he is living.

Name: Bastian Vinaya sankar

This elephant has the 4th rank in all the elephants in Kerala. It has a long tail whose hairs touch the ground. Elephant lovers in Kerala like it because of its wide ears.

Elephant tumbling down purposely!

AFRICAN ELEPHANT

Phylum: CHORDATA
Class: MAMMALIA
Order: PROBOSCIDEA
Family: ELEPHANTIDAE
They were not domesticated and trained and worshipped as in Asia. So, they used the elephant even for meat. The African Elephants are more difficult to train than the Asian Elephant. They are trainable, however, and have been used in zoos .

Elephant - Brazilian Zoo

just for laugh

The Land of the White Elephant:

The myth and legend of the white elephant began in Southeast Asia - The Land of the White Elephant..
In the story of the Buddha, the white elephant is connected to fetility and toknowledge. On the eve of giving birth to the Lord Buddha, his mother dreams that a white elephant comes to present her with a lotus, symbol of purity and knowledge.
At the heart of the first great Southeast Asian Empire, at the Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the might of the war elephants is depicted on murals of the region's armies.
Over the next few hundred years, two states dominated the region - theforerunners of modern Burma and Thailand (Siam). In both, the elephant was a very important animal. It was key to military success - both in mass battles, and in the elephant duels.
It was also key to royal pageantry - kings chose the biggest, most magnificentelephants for royal ceremonies and processions. Kings and courtiers spent a lot of time and energy hunting elephants from the forests. And the most powerful kings kept thousands in their stables.

Mammoth

A mammoth is a species of the extinct genus Mammuthus. These proboscideans (elephants or their extinct relatives) were often equipped with long curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair. They lived from the Pliocene epoch from 4.8 million years ago to around 4,500 years ago.The word mammoth comes from the Russian мамонт mamont, probably in turn from the Vogul (Mansi) language.They are believed to have originally evolved in North Africa about 4.8 million years ago,also found in South Africa and Kenya, is also believed to be one of the oldest species (about 4 million years ago).
New DNA research links ancient mammoth to Asian elephant !A group of international scientists, including Dr Ian Barnes of Royal Holloway, University of London, have constructed the first ever complete ancient DNA sequence of a 11,000 year old woolly mammoth, and have discovered that it was more closely related to the Asian elephant than to the African elephant, as previously thought.
Most mammoths died out at the end of the last Ice Age. A definitive explanation for their mass extinction is yet to be agreed upon. A small population survived on St. Paul Island, Alaska, up until 6000 BC,and the small mammoths of Wrangel Island became extinct only around 2500 BC.

More Elephants !

pooram Snap

Its a snap of pooram-Trichur.15 elephants with all ornaments and umbrellas!its marvellous !!

Trichur & Elephant

Trichur is a district in Kerala,India.As I said earlier Kerala has 700 elephants in captivity. Most of them are tuskers. Unlike the African elephants, Asian elephants has tusks only in male.
In Trichur there are 250 elephants in captivity and they are a part of the day to day life. People of Trichur has a unique tradition of appreciating the beauty of elephants. It was prestigious to keep an elephant. Many people still keep elephants. They are used for religious ceremonies in and around the temples. Only a few elephants work at timber yards.
Trichur has roughly 500 temples around. Each temple has 2 - 3 festivals in a year. There would be 1 / 3 / 7 / 15 / 45 / 75 / 105 decorated elephants at these temple festivals.Every day from November to March there would be a number of temple festivals around.Many temples also keep elephants. Most of them are donated by devotees. Guruvayoor temple (1 hour drive from Trichur) has 57 elephants. All of them donated by devotees.In Trichur Venkitadri family makes ornaments for elephants for three generations.They make gold plated caparisons, umbrellas, Alavattom, Venchamaram, necklace etc. They distribute 150 elephants with ornaments for temple festivals.Will collect and write more on thrichur,its my place....land of elephant lovers !We have the most famous festival called "POORAM"where elephants are having a high importance...will write later.

Tour Diary

To spend time like this :

Palmland Tours, Kerala.

"Mahouts"

Kerala has more than 700 elephants in captivity. Most of them are owned by temples and individuals.They are used for religious ceremonies in and around the temples. A few elephants work at timber yards.Each elephant has three mahouts, called "pappan" in the Malayalam language. The most important duty of the mahouts is to bathe and massage the elephant with small rocks, and husk of coconuts.
In the monsoon, the elephants undergo Ayurvedic rejuvenation treatments which include decoctions with herbs, etc. It is called Sukha Chikitsa in the Malayalam language.
Mahouts may be classified into three types, called in the Sanskrit language:
Reghawan: Those who use love to control their elephants.
Yukthiman: Those who use ingenuity to outsmart them.
Balwan: Those who control elephants with cruelty.

Guruvayoor Kesavan

"Gajarajan" Guruvayoor Kesavan (1904-1976) was perhaps the most famous and celebrated elephant in Kerala, south India. Kesavan was donated to the Guruvayoor temple by the royal family of Nilambur in 1916 when he was about 10 years old.
He was 3.2 metres tall. The Guruvayoor Temple authority has erected a life-size statue in its precincts as mark of tribute to the services he has rendered to the presiding deity of the temple. The tusks of Kesavan can be still seen adorning the entrance to the main temple enclosure, along with a majestic picture of his. He was known for his devout behaviour towards the lord. Kesavan died on a very auspicious day of "Guruvayur Ekadasi". He fasted for the entire day and dropped down facing the direction of the temple with his trunk raised as a mark of prostration.His death anniversary is still celebrated in Guruvauyur. Hundreds of elephants line up before the statue and the chief elephant garlands it.
Kesavan was conferred the title "Gajarajan" (King of elephants), a title bestowed by Guruvayoor Devaswom for the first time on elephants. This elephant also has a biographical full-length feature film (in Malayalam) with his own name as the title.
We keralites still remember him because he ws the one who have all the best features of an elephant !!

About Elephants in Kerala

Almost all of the festivals in Kerala include at least one richly caparisoned elephant. Elephants carry the deity during annual festival processions and ceremonial circambulations in the temples. The temple elephants are decorated with gold plated caparisons (nettipattom), bells, and necklaces. People mounted on the elephants hold tinselled silk parasols (muthukuda) up high, swaying white tufts (venchamaram) and peacock feather fans (aalavattom) to the rhythm of the orchestra.
Most of the Hindu temples in Kerala own elephants, and most of these elephants are donated by devotees. The most famous Guruvayur temple in Kerala has more than 60 domesticated elephants and thus the Presiding Deity, Guruvayurappan is said to be the owner of world's largest number of domesticated elephants. They have constructed the world's only Elephant Palace in Punnathur Kotta, 3 km from the temple for their elephants. One of the famous elephants named Guruvayur Keshavan was an elephant of this temple.

Lets get started !!

So Friends, I am an elephant lover!!

My state kerala(India) is a land where elephants are having a great importance in the society.Elephants are essential in almost all hindu festivals here.In later posts u will find more fotos of these festivals.In my state Elephants are called as "AANA".Hope we will have nice time thru this blog !!

Cheers !