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The elephant is the largest and one of the most powerful and intelligent animals. Even though blue whales are the largest animals for they grow up to 30 meters, elephants top the list as far as land animals are concerned. A fully grown elephant may reach a height of 4 meters and a weight of 6 metric tons. The most remarkable feature of the elephant is its tusks and trunk. The tusks, in fact, are two of its upper teeth that have grown on the outside and become enlarged. A tame or trained elephant uses its tusks to support heavy loads while wild elephants use them as weapons of attack. Tusks are made of ivory which is highly valuable. And it is for tusks that elephants are hunted down and killed. Even though articles made of ivory are banned in most countries they are available in the black market, and this leads to elephant poaching. The trunk is another interesting feature of the elephant. It serves as an arm and a hand for picking up twigs and leaves and pushing them into its mouth. The ‘trunk is actually the elephant’s lengthened nose and upper lip. It is thick and well-protected on the outside but has a tender inside.
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Elephant cognition is the study of animal cognition as present in elephants. Most contemporary ethologists view the elephant as one of the world's most intelligent animals. With a mass of just over 5 kg (11 lb), an elephant's brain has more mass than that of any other land animal, and although the largest whales have body masses twenty times those of a typical elephant, a whale's brain is barely twice the mass of an elephant's brain. In addition, elephants have around 257 billion neurons.[1] Elephant brains are similar to humans' and many other mammals' in terms of general connectivity and functional areas, with several unique structural differences. Although initially estimated to have as many neurons as a human brain,[2] the elephant's cortex has about one-third of the number of neurons as a human brain.[1]
Elephants manifest a wide variety of behaviors, including those associated with grief, learning, mimicry, play, altruism, use of tools, compassion, cooperation,[3][4] self-awareness, memory, and communication.[5] Further, evidence suggests elephants may understand pointing: the ability to nonverbally communicate an object by extending a finger, or equivalent.[6] It is thought they are equal with cetaceans[7][8][9][10] and primates[8][11][12] in this regard. Due to such claims of high intelligence and due to strong family ties of elephants, some researchers argue it is morally wrong for humans to cull them.[13] Aristotle described the elephant as "the animal that surpasses all others in wit and mind."[14]