What is the gestation period of the African elephant?

Option D

Gestation is the longest of any mammal 550-670 days. The newborn elephant is about a metre (3.3 feet) tall and weighs about 100 kg (220 pounds). It suckles by using the mouth, not the trunk, at mammary glands located in the chest region. Weaning is a long process and sometimes continues until the mother can no longer tolerate the pokes of her offspring’s emerging tusks. After weaning, many hours of each day are spent eating.

Elephant live in small family groups led by old females (cows). Where food is plentiful, the groups join together. Most males (bulls) live in bachelor herds apart from the cows. Males and females both possess two glands that open between the eye and ear. Elephants of all ages and sexes secrete a fluid called temporin out of this orifice. Males, however, enter a “musth period,” during which they secrete a fluid differing in viscosity from the fluid secreted when they are not in musth. Serum testosterone during musth is higher than in a nonmusth elephant, and the animal’s behaviour is erratic; they are uncontrollable (musth is Hindi for “intoxicated”), sometimes even by their own handlers (mahouts). Musth is the time for establishing reproductive hierarchy, which can differ from the usual social hierarchy in that a male in musth outranks nonmusth males. In the wild, males are usually at their prime physical state during musth and ordinarily do most of the breeding.

Elephants are able to assess the reproductive status of one another by using their keen sense of smell. Inside the skull, elephants possess from seven to nine nasal turbinals with specialized sensitive tissues for olfaction. (Humans have only three turbinals; dogs have five.) When a female is in estrus, or when a male is in musth, an elephant apparently can detect airborne hormones. Once “collected,” the information is then passed to the Jacobson’s organ, located on the roof of the mouth. This organ conveys the molecules to the brain for analysis. Hormones are also sniffed directly from urine and feces.