Behavior
African elephant society is arranged around family units. Each family unit is made up of around ten closely related females and their calves and is led by an old female known as the matriarch. When separate family units bond, they form kinship groups or bond groups. After puberty, male elephants tend to form alliances with other males.
Elephants are at their most fertile between the ages of 25 and 45. Calves are born after a gestation period of nearly two years. They are cared for by their mother and other young females in the group, known as allomothers.
Elephants use some vocalisations that are beyond the hearing range of humans, to communicate across large distances.
Read more about this topic: African Elephant
Famous quotes containing the word behavior:
“The confusion of emotions with behavior causes no end of unnecessary trouble to both adults and children. Behavior can be commanded; emotions can’t. An adult can put controls on a child’s behavior—at least part of the time—but how do you put controls on what a child feels? An adult can impose controls on his own behavior—if he’s grown up—but how does he order what he feels?”
—Leontine Young (20th century)
“Children, randomly at first, hit upon something sooner or later that is their mother’s and/or father’s Achilles’ heel, a kind of behavior that especially upsets, offends, irritates or embarrasses them. One parent dislikes name-calling, another teasing...another bathroom jokes. For the parents, this behavior my have ties back to their childhood, many have been something not allowed, forbidden, and when it appears in the child, it causes high-voltage reaction in the parent.”
—Ellen Galinsky (20th century)
“Temperament is the natural, inborn style of behavior of each individual. It’s the how of behavior, not the why.... The question is not, “Why does he behave a certain way if he doesn’t get a cookie?” but rather, “When he doesn’t get a cookie, how does he express his displeasure...?” The environment—and your behavior as a parent—can influence temperament and interplay with it, but it is not the cause of temperamental characteristics.”
—Stanley Turecki (20th century)