The Asian elephant has three subspecies: the Indian,Sri Lankan and Sumatran elephants.

Young Asian elephants exude a more pleasant smell than their older counterparts during the musth period. Musth is a period when adolescent and adult male elephants' testosterone levels surge making them aggressive and sex crazed. The sweeter smell serves to keep the youngsters out of trouble,wheras the stronger smell signals the adults readiness for mating and dominance tussles.

The weight of an adult bull elephant can be upto 5 tons (5000 kg.). Despite this, the distribution of weight per sq. inch in an elephant step is less than that of a human step.

The Elephants brain, at 5 kg., is the largest in the animal kingdom.

There are 100,000 muscle units in the trunk.

Elephants do not use their trunks as straws, they suck water into it, then squirt it into their mouths, up to 6 liters at a time

Thin skin and large surface area of the ears help elephants to stay cool.

Elephants have a large repertoire of growls, roars, grunts, trumpets, snorts and others we cant even hear to communicate warnings, greetings distress etc. They communicate over several kms. by means of infrasound, sound at a frequency too low for our ears to pick up.

Matriarchal society in elephants is one of the most complex in the animal kingdom, with a place for discipline, respect for elders, babysitters and even midwives.

Elephants at Inheritance India :

Ever since we took charge, there has been sporadic movement of elephants in and around our land. There is a conflict of interests with man, as elephants are naturally very destructive to their environment in their feeding habits, and are thus not welcome in the commercially orientated plantations surrounding us. The owners/workers deal with this problem by bursting firecrackers to scare them away.

It is a great joy to us that a family of 6 elephants ( 4 adults and 2 young) has found a safe refuge on our land. The family has been peaceful and undisturbed on the land for the last 3-4 months. A lone tusker is a frequent visitor. He has to be carefully monitored as he has a violent history and has killed 5 people in the past. We feel this is because of the conflict of interests with the plantation owners/workers. Even though there have been several encounters with him on our land, he has not shown any direct aggression.

Elephants are normally quite destructive to their habitat and accordingly move vast distances, returning to areas only after several years, when they have had sufficient time to recover. Due to ever expanding human population, almost all their traditional migration routes have been cut off and herds are forced to stay in pockets of forest surrounded by plantations or other human habitation.

The Man - Elephant conflict is a country wide problem for which only band-aid solutions have been found so far.