關於大象的問題

Elephant is a big animal and they need much energy. They cannot find enough food to survive, so that the numbers of elephant is reducing.

Hunters kill elephants to get their tooth for money. Ivory is elephant's tooth and they are very rare and expensive for making decorative products.

Elephant
圖片參考：http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/Elephant_near_ndutu.jpg/250px-Elephant_near_ndutu.jpg

An African Elephant near the border of the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania. Scientific classification Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Proboscidea
Superfamily: Elephantoidea
Family: Elephantidae
Gray, 1821 Subfamilia See Classification The elephants (Elephantidae) are a family in the order Proboscidea in the class Mammalia. They were once classified along with other thick skinned animals in a now invalid order, Pachydermata. There are three living species: the African Bush Elephant, the African Forest Elephant (until recently known collectively as the African Elephant), and the Asian Elephant (also known as the Indian Elephant). Other species have become extinct since the last ice age, which ended about 10,000 years ago, the Mammoth being the most well-known of these.
The word "elephant" has its origins in the Greek ἐλέφας, meaning "ivory" or "elephant".[1]
Elephants are mammals, and the largest land animals alive today.[2] The elephant's gestation period is 22 months, the longest of any land animal. At birth it is common for an elephant calf to weigh 120 kilograms (265 lb). An elephant may live as long as 70 years, sometimes longer. The largest elephant ever recorded was shot in Angola in 1956. This male weighed about 12,000 kg (26,400 lb),[3] with a shoulder height of 4.2 m (13.8 ft), a metre (3 ft 4 in) taller than the average male African elephant.[4] The smallest elephants, about the size of a calf or a large pig, were a prehistoric species that lived on the island of Crete during the Pleistocene epoch.[5]
Elephants are symbols of wisdom in Asian cultures, and are famed for their exceptional memory and very high intelligence, on par with cetaceans and hominids.[6][7]. Aristotle once said the elephant was "the beast which passeth all others in wit and mind."
Elephants are increasingly threatened by human intrusion and poaching. Once numbering in the millions, the African elephant population has dwindled to between 470,000 and 690,000 individuals.[8] The elephant is now a protected species worldwide, with restrictions in place on capture, domestic use, and trade in products such as ivory. Elephants generally have no natural predators, although lions may take calves and occasionally adults.[9][10] In some areas, lions may regularly take to preying on elephants.[11]