The Elephants
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There are two types of elephant at Paignton Zoo, the Asian and the African
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The photographs on this page are from the official Paignton Zoo site and were taken by local amatuer photographer Kelvin Halloran
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The Asian Elephant
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The Asian elephant has an enormous domed head with relatively small ears, an arched back and a single finger like protuberance that is located at the tip of the trunk. An Asian elephant has five toes on the front feet and four on the back.
A large bull could typically weigh six tons and is ten feet high at the shoulder. As with gorillas, there is a large degree of sexual dimorphism between males and females in Asian elephants where adult females are about half the size of the largest males.
The males have tusks and the females have "tushes", which are short secondary incisors that just stick out beyond the upper lip. However, it is important to note that on occasion females some times have longer tushes than described.
The gestation period is between 19 and 22 months. Periodically, it is noted that male infants typically have a slightly longer term than females.
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The African Elephant
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The African elephant has a straight back, enormous ears and two trunk "fingers".
African elephants are named for the peculiar shaped ridges on their molar teeth, the ridges of an African elephants teeth are coarser and fewer than that of an Asian elephant.
The African elephant has only four toes on the front feet and three on the back. Interestingly, it has one more vertebra in the lumbar section of the spine. Both sexes have tusks, and they are also larger in size as compared to male and female Asian elephants.
The largest African elephant recorded weighed over nine tons and stood more than twelve feet high at shoulder. As in Asian elephants, the female is generally half the size of a fully grown male.
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