African-elephant Sentence Examples

The African elephant is a very different animal from its Asiatic cousin, both as regards structure and habits; and were it not for the existence of intermediate extinct species, might well be regarded as the representative of a distinct genus.

In size the male African elephant often surpasses the Asiatic species, reaching nearly 12 ft.

In height it stood about the same as a young individual of the ordinary African elephant when about a year and a half old, the vertical measurement at the shoulder being only 4 ft., or merely a foot higher than a new-born Indian elephant.

By Dr Paul Matschie several races of the African elephant have been described, mainly, as already mentioned, on certain differences in the shape of the ear.

It may be added that fossil remains of the African elephant have been obtained from Spain, Sicily, Algeria and Egypt, in strata of the Pleistocene age.

In point of bodily size mammals present a greater range of variation than is exhibited by any other living terrestrial animals, the extremes in this respect being displayed by the African elephant on the one hand and certain species of shrewmice (whose head and body scarcely exceed an inch and a half in length) on the other.

Do you really want the mating call of an African elephant blaring out at you at two o'clock in the morning without warning?

Except where exterminated by human agency (and this has been accomplished to a deplorable extent), the African elephant is a native of the wooded districts of the whole of Africa south of the Sahara.

Several local races of African elephant have been described, mainly distinguished from one another by the form and size of the ears, shape of the head, &c. The most interesting of these is the pigmy Congo race, africanus pumilio, named on the evidence of an immature specimen in the possession of C. Hagenbeck, the well-known animal-dealer of Hamburg, in 1905.

Hagenbeck's estimate of its age was based on the presence of well-developed tusks, and the relative proportion of the fore and hind limbs, which are stated to show considerable differences in the case of the African elephant according to age.

This view may receive some support from the occurrence of a dwarf form of the African elephant in the Congo; and if we regard the latter as a subspecies of Elephas africanus, it seems highly probable that a similar position will have to be assigned to the pigmy European fossil elephants.