Elephants Giant Mammals

Elephants, Giant Mammals, written by Pete Ramirez. Focus question, how do the unique features of elephants help them survive?

大象——巨型哺乳动物，作者：皮特·拉米雷斯。 思考问题：大象的独特特征如何帮助它们生存？

Big and Brainy Without a doubt, elephants are the most gigantic land animals living on Earth today. To find a more immense walking creature, you would have to go back to the age of dinosaurs. Elephants aren't just huge. They're also highly intelligent, have many ways to communicate with one another, and are clever enough to work together to get things done.

庞大又聪明 毫无疑问，大象是如今地球上体型最大的陆地动物。 想要找到比它更大的陆地行走生物，你得回到恐龙时代。 大象可不只是体型庞大。 它们还拥有极高智商，有多种互相交流的方式，还懂得协作完成任务。

Exploring the Elephant No other animal quite compares to the stately elephant, with its giant body, thick gray or brown skin, and round, sturdy legs. Most unusual of all is its long, snake -like trunk, an appendage that is the elephant's all -in -one nose and upper lip. Elephants use their super -sized trunks for several significant purposes. They breathe through them, use them to pick up food and water, and blast air through them to make a deafening trumpeting sound. Elephants also touch other elephants with their trunks in different ways to communicate. Two elephants will often twist their trunks together to show affection. A mother elephant might use her trunk to gently stroke her calf and calm it down, or to punish it with an elephant -sized smack.

认识大象 没有哪种动物能和端庄的大象相比：它有着庞大的身躯、厚厚的灰或棕色皮肤，还有结实粗壮的圆腿。 最特别的就是它那条长长的、像蛇一样的象鼻，这个器官既是大象的鼻子，也是它的上唇，一身多用。 大象用这条超大号的象鼻完成很多重要的工作。 它们用象鼻呼吸，抓取食物、舀取水，还能通过象鼻喷气发出震耳欲聋的象吼声。 大象也会用象鼻以不同方式触摸同伴，来传递信息。 两头大象常常会把象鼻缠在一起，表达喜爱之情。 象妈妈会用象鼻轻轻抚摸安抚小象，也会用象鼻给犯错的小象来一巴掌，惩罚它。

African and Asian Elephants The two main species of elephants are African and Asian. It is simple to tell them apart if you know what continent you are in, but there are other clues as well. African elephants are greater in size than their Asian relatives, with males measuring 13 feet, 4 meters tall, and weighing up to 14 ,000 pounds, 6 ,350 kilograms. Females are shorter and lighter, at around 9 feet, 2 .7 meters, tall, and up to 10 ,000 pounds, 4 ,540 kilograms. Male Asian elephants are around 3 feet, 0 .9144 meters shorter, and about 3 ,000 pounds, 1 ,360 kilograms lighter than African males. Females are even smaller and, unlike African females, often have no tusks at all. An African elephant's appearance differs from its Asian counterpart in other ways too. Its floppy ears are often twice as large as those of an Asian elephant. The back of an African elephant also dips down in the middle, unlike an Asian elephant's. If you inspected the animal even more thoroughly, you would see two fingers at the end of its These handy flaps grab food and small objects.

非洲象与亚洲象 大象主要分为两个物种：非洲象和亚洲象。 如果你知道自己身处哪个大洲，很容易就能分清它们，除此之外还有其他区分特征。 非洲象的体型比亚洲象更大，雄性非洲象身高可达13英尺（4米），体重最高可达14000磅（6350千克）。 雌性非洲象更矮更轻，身高约9英尺（2.7米），体重最高可达10000磅（4540千克）。 雄性亚洲象比雄性非洲象矮约3英尺（0.9144米），轻约3000磅（1360千克）。 雌性亚洲象体型更小，而且和雌性非洲象不同，它们通常完全没有象牙。 非洲象和亚洲象还有其他外形差异。 非洲象耷拉的大耳朵，大小通常是亚洲象耳朵的两倍。 此外，非洲象的背部中间向下凹陷，亚洲象则不是这样。 如果你再仔细观察，会发现非洲象的象鼻末端有两个指状突起，这些灵活的小突起可以抓起食物和小物件。

In addition to having smaller ears, Asian elephants have large, round bumps on the tops of their huge heads. Spotting these bumps is a clear way to identify the species. The bumps are often the tallest point on an Asian elephant. Their backs are flat or arched, and we can't forget their trunks, which have just one finger at the end instead of two.

除了耳朵更小之外，亚洲象硕大的头顶还有大大的圆形隆起。 看到这些隆起就能明确分辨出这个物种。 这些隆起通常是亚洲象全身上下最高的部位。 亚洲象的背部平坦或是向上拱起，别忘了它们的象鼻：末端只有一个指状突起，而非两个。

Elephant Hangouts Elephants are adaptable enough to live in many different types of habitats, as long as they can find enough food and water. In Africa, elephants live in hot, dry grasslands, rainforests, and even deserts. They can live at sea level or high in the mountains. Asian elephants live in wet rainforests and swamps, as well as in other, more arid forests with long dry seasons. Because of elephants' hulking size, even ferocious lions and tigers won't attack a healthy adult elephant. Humans, however, hunt them for their ivory tusks and shoot them for destroying crops. As human population increases, elephants' natural habitats are disappearing. Humans build more roads, plant more crops, and cut down more trees. Less and less land is available for wild animals, especially ones that need large amounts of food and space. Elephants once roamed almost all of Africa and South Asia, But today, their habitats are shrinking significantly in size.

大象的栖息地 大象适应能力很强，能在多种不同的栖息地生活，只要能找到足够的食物和水就可以。 在非洲，大象生活在炎热干燥的草原、雨林，甚至沙漠中。 它们可以生活在海平面区域，也能生活在高山上。 亚洲象生活在潮湿的雨林和沼泽中，也能生活在其他旱季更长的干旱森林里。 因为大象体型庞大，就算是凶猛的狮子和老虎也不会攻击健康的成年大象。 但人类会为了象牙猎杀它们，还会因为它们破坏庄稼射杀它们。 随着人口增长，大象的自然栖息地正在不断消失。 人类修建更多道路，开垦更多农田，砍伐更多树木。 可供野生动物生存的土地越来越少，对于需要大量食物和活动空间的大象来说更是如此。 大象曾经几乎遍布整个非洲和南亚，但如今它们的栖息地面积已经大幅缩小。