Asian elephants have fascinated, worked alongside and been deified by people, extending back over the course of many millennia, to the dawn of recorded history. Theirs is an amazing story. Discover the remarkable lifestyle of Asian elephants, including how they differ from their better-known African cousins, their cultural significance and what is being done to assist their conservation in the wild today, in this unique guide to Asia’s largest living mammal. Find out too about one of the most incredible yet little known events in the natural world which involves Asian elephants, and where you can still see them in their hundreds, in what is a truly awe-inspiring sight.
ELEPHANT ENCOUNTERS • It’s one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on earth - the migration of hundreds of Asian elephants that takes place as a result of the dry season in Sri Lanka. Known as the Elephant Gathering, there is no other congregation of elephants like this anywhere else in the world. One of the best places to see the event close-up is at Minneriya National Park in the central part of the island, between the months of July and September each year.
THE ORIGINS OF ELEPHANTS • Asian elephants are the largest land mammals occurring on the continent today, bringing to mind the huge, extinct plant-eating mammals that dominated Earth during the Pleistocene epoch, which extended from about 125,000 to 14,500 years ago. Among these was Platybelodon, a fore-runner of the elephant which lived in parts of Asia around 20 million years ago. The origins of our modern elephants are much more recent, however, extending back just over four million years in the fossil record, and it is believed that the earliest members of this proboscidean line probably developed in Africa.
TODAY’S ELEPHANTS • The two surviving species of elephant alive today reflect the names of the continents where they are to be found. The Asian elephant ( Elephas maximus ) is smaller than its African cousin ( Loxodonta africana ), with the Sri Lankan population being regarded as a distinctive form of the Asian species. It is thought that about 10% of Asia’s surviving elephant population - equivalent to about 3000 or so individuals - live on Sri Lanka, making it a very important refuge for the species.
WHAT MAKES AN ELEPHANT? • Aside from its massive size, the most distinctive feature of an elephant is its trunk. This represents a combination of its upper lip and nose which fuse together early during pregnancy. The trunk is an incredibly versatile structure, being controlled by about 150,000 separate bundles of muscle fibres! It serves as a hand, being capable of pulling and picking up plant matter before then placing this directly into the elephant’s mouth, and can also act like a straw, drawing up water. This may then be used either for drinking or bathing, with the trunk being able to hold up to 4 litres (almost a gallon) of water.
WHITE ELEPHANTS • Records of white elephants in Asia date back many centuries. Such individuals are not only exceptionally rare though, but also very highly prized, and they were traditionally considered to be sacred in countries such as Thailand, being regarded as bringing peace and prosperity to a kingdom. Indeed, those rulers lucky enough to possess a white elephant often featured it in their title, as in the case of the Burmese ruler called Hsinbyushin, whose name translates as Lord of the White Elephant.
SYMBOLIC LINKS • There are a number of significant religious links between people and elephants, with ancient ties having developed between elephants and all three major Eastern religions. The best-known is probably the Hindu deity known as Ganesha who is linked with learning. In kundalini yoga, Ganesha is associated with the first chakra or energy point. He is also known as Gana deviyo in Singhala Buddhist areas on Sri Lanka, and Buddha himself is believed to have been...
