The african forest elephant
The African Forest Elephant mainly lives in central and southern Africa in nomadic herds that wander through the forests and grasslands of Africa grazing for food and searching for waterholes.
They are most commonly founds in the tropical dense jungles, where their smaller size allows them to move through the thick vegetation more easily than the larger African Bush Elephant.
African ForestElephants are threatened throughout much of their natural habitat today mainly due to deforestation and climate change and have been pushed into smaller and smaller pockets of their native lands.
The African Forest Elephant mainly uses it's immense tusks for digging for roots in the ground and to strip the bark off trees.
The African Forest Elephant also uses it's tusks to defend itself from predators such as Lions, and to fight with other male African Forest Elephants during the mating season.
Males are generally fairly solitary but females and their young form small family groups known as herds. This allows the more vulnerable offspring to be more easily protected.
African Forest Elephants communicate through a series of low-frequency calls which they are able to detect from a few kilometres away.
The tusks of the African Forest Elephant are pretty straight instead of curved to help them move through the thick jungle with greater ease.
This, along with their pinkish tinge, has made the ivory of the African Forest Elephant's tusks in high demand on the black market.
Despite African Forest Elephants being able to communicate with one another through a couple of miles of dense jungle, the sound they make is so low that it cannot be heard by Humans.
They are an essential tool in the spreading of seeds throughout Africa's forests and are therefore vital to the running of their native eco-systems.
Female African Forest Elephants reach sexual maturity (are able to reproduce) after 10 or 11 years, and male African Forest Elephants often don't reach sexual maturity until they are nearly 20 years old.
After a gestation period of up to 2 years, the female African Forest Elephant gives birth to a single calf (twins have been known but are extremely rare).
The African Forest Elephant calf is nursed for 2 years and will remain with the herd until it is old enough to support itself. It is at this point that the tusks of the African Forest Elephant calf will be starting to grow.
The illegal wildlife trade is annually worth more than
19 billion US dollars.
The Western Black Rhino was declared extinct in 2013.
Don't let this happen to the elephants as well.
