Elephant with Rounded Trunk

Hand made and hand painted.

Materials: high quality native hardwood (maple and elm), finished with environmentally sound oils and lacquers

Size: 135 mm H (5.31 inches)

Made in Germany

Facts:
Three species of elephant are living today: the African Bush Elephant, the African Forest Elephant and the Asian Elephant (also known as the Indian Elephant). All other species are extinct, some since the last ice age: dwarf forms of mammoths may have survived as late as 2,000 BC. The African and the Asian elephant diverged from a common ancestor some 7.6 million years ago.

Elephants are the largest land animals now living. 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 (260 lb). They typically live for 50 to 70 years. 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.

Elephants are a symbol of wisdom in Asian cultures and are famed for their memory and intelligence. Aristotle once said the elephant was "the beast which passeth all others in wit and mind".

African elephants are distinguished from Asian elephants in several ways, the most noticeable being their much larger ears. Also, the African elephant is typically larger than the Asian elephant and has a concave back. In Asian elephants only males have tusks, but both males and females of African elephants have tusks and are usually less hairy than their Asian cousins.

African elephants have traditionally been classified as a single species comprising two distinct subspecies, namely the savanna elephant and the forest elephant. Most often, Savanna Elephants are found in open grasslands, marshes, and lakeshores. They range over much of the savanna zone south of the Sahara. The Forest Elephant is usually smaller and rounder, and its tusks thinner and straighter compared with the Savanna Elephant. Normally, they inhabit the dense African rain forests of central and western Africa, although occasionally they roam the edges of forests.