Elephants are very large and very intelligent animals, they are currently the largest land animals that exist. They are relatives of the extinct mammoth, a mammal that lived until 3,700 years ago.
The pregnancy period of an elephant is very long, one of the longest in existence today. There are several factors that influence the period to be this long, one of these is the size of the elephant as a fetus and the size they should reach at birth. Also a determining factor in the time of gestation is the brain, which has to develop enough before birth.
On our site you will learn more about the pregnancy of an elephant and thus you will be able to know how long an elephant's pregnancy lasts and some other details and curiosities that will feed your knowledge, you can read all this information in the following lines:
Elephant fertilization
The female elephant's menstrual cycle lasts 3 to 4 months, so they can be fertilized 3 to 4 times a year, these factors make pregnancy in captivity somewhat difficult. Courtship between male and female is short-lived, they tend to rub against each other and hug each other's trunks.
Females tend to run away from males, who must chase them. Male elephants flap their ears more during mating season than at other times, in order to spread their scent and have a better chance of reproducing. Males older than 40 and 50 years of age are the most likely to mate, while females can gestate from 14 years of age.
In the wild there is a lot of aggression among males for the right to mate, where the youngest have little chance against to the strength of the oldest. They must wait until they are more mature to reproduce. The normal thing is that the males cover the females once a day for 3 to 4 days and if the process is successful the female enters the gestation period.
The gestation of the elephant
The pregnancy and gestation of an elephant can last approximately 22 months, this being one of the longest processes in the animal kingdom. There are several reasons why this period is so long, one of which is that elephants are very large even when they are just fetuses.
Because of its size, the development of the elephant in the mother's womb is slower, so gestation becomes slow as it goes hand in hand with development. Pregnancy in elephants is maintained by various ovarian hormones known as corpora lutea.
The gestation time also allows the elephant to correctly develop its brain, something very important since they are highly intelligent animals, this intelligence helps them to feed using their long trunk. This brain development also allows the elephant to survive at birth.
Elephant pregnancy curiosities
There are certain interesting curiosities regarding the subject of elephants and their pregnancy, these are:
- Elephants can be artificially inseminated, however this requires invasive methods.
- Elephants possess a novel hormonal process that has not been evidenced in any other species so far.
- The gestation period of an elephant is ten months longer than that of the blue whale, this one with a period of one year.
- An elephant calf should weigh 100 to 150 kilograms at birth.
- Elephants cannot see when they are born, they are practically blind.
- Between each birth the interval is approximately 4 to 5 years.
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