How To Tell The Difference Between African And Asian Elephants
To the layperson, the Asian and African elephants can seem indistinguishable; however there are some key physical differences that make it relatively easy to tell the two species apart.
According to the Elephant Sanctuary the key differences can be seen in the head shapes, tusks and ears. African elephants have much bigger ears which are actually shaped in a similar manner to the continent of Africa. African elephants need large ears to help keep them cool in the blazing African sun. In contrast Asian elephants do not have to worry about heat so much because they tend to live in jungle areas which are much cooler and this of course makes their ears smaller.
African and Asian elephants also have very different head shapes. The head of an African elephant is fuller and more rounded with its top shaped as a single dome. In contrast Asian elephants have heads with twin domes separated by an indent in the middle.
Male and female African elephants usually though not always grow tusks whilst with Asian elephants only the male grows a set of tusks.
There are smaller differences that distinguish both elephant species such as how wrinkled the skin is, how many toenails the animals have, the shape of their teeth and the feel of their trunk.
Despite all the differences both elephant species behave very similarly socially. Both like to move about in herds which have defined social structures often led by the oldest female and her offspring. Males in contrast tend to leave the herd once they hit puberty and join bachelor groups with the older males preferring to go it alone completely.
Since African and Asian elephants never meet in the wild, there has only ever been one instance of cross breeding. Back in 1978 and Asian elephant gave birth to a calf that was fathered by an African bull elephant. The calf had features of both parents but was born prematurely and died just two weeks later from stomach complications.
