How many knees does an elephant have

In elephants, the knee joint plays important roles in weight bearing and locomotion, but anatomical data are sparse and lacking in functional analyses. In addition, the knee joint is affected frequently by arthrosis. Here we examined structures of the knee joint by means of standard anatomical techniques in eight African Loxodonta africana and three Asian elephants Elephas maximus. Furthermore, we performed radiography in five African and two Asian elephants and magnetic resonance imaging MRI in one African elephant.

And for this myth we once again have Pliny to thank, believe it or not. Not so. As a researcher of elephant behavior told LiveScience in : "In the wild, anything that suddenly runs or slithers by an elephant can spook it.

It doesn't have to be a mouse—dogs, cats, snakes or any animal that makes sudden movements by an elephant's feet can startle it. Elephants, you see, have incredibly poor eyesight, relying instead on a highly developed sense of smell.

Venomous snakes can kill baby elephants , so evolutionarily it makes sense to be cautious with tiny things that sneak up on them. Though I suppose not quite as out of shape as those poor mice. Browse the full Fantastically Wrong archive here. Have a crazy theory or myth you want me to cover? Badke, D. The Medieval Bestiary. Brown, T. Tuft's Perseus Digital Library. If you look at an elephant on a hot day, you may see a wet area around the top of their toenails. The only visible glands that are found on the skin of an elephant are the mammary glands and the temporal glands.

Elephants have one temporal gland on each side of the head between the eye and the ear. The temporal gland is a large gland, much like a sweat gland, that sometimes produces a secretion that trickles down the side of the face. In female elephants, these glands may become active when the animal gets very excited. In addition to their tusks, which are modified incisors, an elephant will have four molars, with a molar located in each jaw.

An African elephant will go through six sets of molars in a lifetime. Later in life, a single molar can be inches long and weigh more than eight lb. The surface of the molar differs between Asian and African elephants. There is no real tooth socket. As a molar is formed and utilized by the elephant, it passes through the jaw from back to front in a conveyor belt fashion. The final set typically erupts when the animal is in its early forties and must last for the rest of its life.

After these last sets of molars wear smooth, an elephant will have difficulty chewing and processing food, which in turn begins to contribute to a decline in the animals overall well-being.

In addition to elephants, manatees and kangaroos also have teeth that move forward in the jaw in this fashion. With their thick hides and lack of sweat glands, it has long been thought that elephants rely upon their distinctive large ears and bathing in rivers to stay cool in hot climates.

By directing their blood supply near to the surface of small patches of skin scattered around their bodies, elephants can lose heat rapidly, allowing them to fine-tune their internal temperature. Scientists have long been puzzled by temperature regulation in elephants.

Typically, animals with large bodies tend to retain more heat because, relative to their bulk, they have a small surface area for heat to escape from. Elephants, with their heavyweight frames, would appear to be at a disadvantage in the fierce heat of their African and Asian habitats, especially because they lack sweat glands — used for cooling by other mammals — and have tough hides to protect them from spiny bushes and trees. It was assumed by biologists that the creatures, which weigh up to 13 tons 12 tonnes when fully-grown, had evolved large ears to help them stay cool.

The skin in the ears is thinner, so blood pumped into them cools down more readily. But findings by researchers at two universities in Vienna have revealed that elephants also able to cool down by increasing the blood flow to skin patches in other parts of their bodies.

Bright yellow and white colours indicated the parts of their bodies from which the animals were losing the most heat. The study, which is published in the Journal of Thermal Biology, shows how these patches expand as the air temperature increases and more blood flows nearer to the skin surface.

Elephants have two additional ways to stay cool: ear-flapping, which creates a breeze, and bathing, which cools the creatures when the water evaporates from their skin.