Recently, my mom traveled to Thailand and send me lots of pictures of elephants. When I saw the picture, the giant volume of elephant suddenly attracted my attention. Go over the images, I found out an interesting fact that no adult elephants is jumping. To find out the reason, I start my research.
First of all, I want to talk about the basic information about Asian elephants. As one of the smartest animals in the world, elephants have big brains and developed a way to comfort their friends when they are in a difficult situation which can only do by a few types of animals. Comparing to African elephants, Asian one is much more smaller and lighter than an elephant in Africa area whose height is around 3 meters from feet to shoulder. And they usually use a long nose to catch the food and throw it into the mouth. Also, there is another interesting fact about the elephant. As most people know, human beings stay pregnant for ten months to give birth, but elephants need to take twenty to twenty-two months.
However, those basic information cannot provide direct evidence to illustrate why elephants cannot jump. Since scientists have not yet provided any research results to the public, I only find some assumptions. Initially, it might cause by elephants’ strange skeleton. Since elephant owns weak ankles, it is hard for them to do the strenuous exercise, like jumping. Their ankles will hurt due to the frequent movement. Second, according to physics, the heavy weight may be another reason. As the equation shows that pressure equals to force divided by surface area. Since the weight of an elephant is big and the area of the feet is small, it would result in a huge pressure which would be hard for an elephant to endure.
Furthermore, to my surprise, the most frequent news about elephant is not its interesting fact, but it is about the illegal ivory trade. Since the teeth of elephants can be used as both medicine and sculpture materials, it become a popular object around the world. And business men are concentrated on trading those special elements from countries to countries which hurt the elephants’ growth, like some elephants developed as a special type that born without teeth. Further information can be got it here: Ivory Trade
In conclusion, even though there are many elephants existing around the world, they still need protections. From doing a little thing like avoid buying staffs made by ivory, it may provide a safe situation for elephants to stay alive.
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Although I cannot personally relate to your topic through a deep love or fascination of elephants, this post caught my eye because it is a topic I’m rather unknowledgeable about. Reading your post, you did present a few interesting points about elephants, including facts about their appearance and physical ability, as well as outlining why they can’t perform activities such as jumping. However, I have to agree with Alexis Herrington, above. I think this post could definitely use some depth to add a component of science to it, as well as more enlightening material to show you really did some in-depth research on the topic. For example, perhaps if you discussed the evolution of elephants, and how natural selection played a role in the appearance and physical capabilities of elephants today, that could make for an even more interesting blog post. Here http://elephant.elehost.com/About_Elephants/Stories/Evolution/evolution.html is an article that does a great job outlining the evolution of elephants as a species. This could definitely add some character and credibility to your post!
Interesting topic! This blog caught my eye for personal reasons. My sister traveled to Thailand with the company, Rustic Pathways, to conserve the elephants. She was given an elephant for the week and she had to feed it, bathe it, ride it, and give it the love and care it needs. Like you stated, many people are taking the elephant’s tusks and selling them to make ivory. It is a big problem because it’s hurting the elephant dramatically. Another fact that interested me, is how you stated they can’t jump. I decided to find more information on it. In this article, http://www.livescience.com/54606-why-elephants-cannot-jump.html, it states that even when elephants run, they aren’t airborne. They always have one foot on the ground. This has to do with the anatomy of the elephants and how they have enormous hefts, but weak leg muscles. There are many elephant conservation groups that are available for us to volunteer and donate to. I will definitely look into one!
Being an elephant lover I liked to see someone bloging about elephants. I actually did a project last year on the ivory trade and learned a great deal, very interesting and sad topic. Anyway, although you bring up many valid points about elephants, I believe you need to make this post a little more scientific and relate the topic back to concepts we learn in class. For example, instead of telling us about their intelligence, maybe find a research study that compares animals intelligent levels. Or, instead of telling us about their sad and unfortunate involvement in the ivory trade, find a study on the effects the ivory trade actually has on elephants, their environment, and their overall population. Here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2008.01035.x/full is a link to a study that examines many effects from poaching elephants.