It's a classic Disney moment: Dumbo the elephant leaps out of a burning building, spreads his huge ears and flies. Although real elephants can't fly, they definitely have huge ears. For example, the African elephant has the largest ears of any animal. Their ears can grow up to 6.6 feet long and 4.11 feet wide.making up 20% of total body surface area. But why are elephants' ears so big?
Of course, this has nothing to do with flying. An elephant's ears play a vital role in how they cool down and communicate.
Why is it so difficult for elephants to keep their cool?
Elephants are the largest land in the world animalweighing staggeringly 12,000 pounds (more than an ambulance). While elephants' size is often an advantage when it comes to protecting themselves from predators or reaching tall vegetation, they also have a harder time keeping their cool. Their massive bodies produce ton internal body heat, even when they are just standing still.
What makes their habitat an even bigger problem is their habitat. Elephants typically live in warm climates where there is a higher risk of overheating.
We humans cool ourselves by dissipating heat through long, narrow body parts such as our legs and arms. However, elephants, with their bulky bodies and thick legs, have relatively little skin surface area to dissipate all the accumulated heat.
Unlike humans, elephants do not sweat much. They have several sweat glands, mainly between their toes, which can secrete a small amount of moisture, but this only helps to cool them down a bit.. They also cannot breathe like dogs. So they developed other cooling methods.
How elephants use their ears to cool themselves
“Elephant ears are extremely efficient at dissipating heat,” says Angela Stöger-HorvathProfessor at the Department of Zoo Conservation at the University of Vienna. Their ears have a large surface area containing thousands of tiny blood vessels.
When elephants pump blood into their ears, the blood moves through thousands of vessels, cooling to the temperature of the outside air. The blood then circulates throughout the elephant's body, helping the animal return to its normal body temperature.
Flapping your ears also helps dissipate heat. When elephants flap their ears, they increase the flow of air through their blood vessels, further cooling the blood.
Using a computer model, the researchers demonstrated that elephants primarily lose heat through their ears. “The ears act as adjustable emitters,” says Stöger-Horvath. “Elephants use them to a greater or lesser extent depending on temperature, activity or time of day.”
This cooling strategy even influenced the evolution of elephants. The African elephant has the largest ears of any species because it lives in hotter, open landscapes, while Asian elephants have comparatively smaller ears because they live in shaded forests.
But as the planet warms due to climate change, elephants and their impressive ears may face new challenges. “Elephant ears are a really important adaptive mechanism,” says George WittemeierProfessor of Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology at Colorado State University. “But as the planet warms, they are exposed to heat in new and different ways. What will be beyond their capabilities?”
How elephants communicate using their ears
Elephants too use your ears to speak to each other. “They hold their ears in a variety of positions to signal their emotional state or behavioral intentions,” says Michael A. Pardo, a senior scientist at the nonprofit. Elephant voices. When faced with a threat, they often spread their ears 90 degrees from their body to make themselves appear even larger. This is often used as a warning to others to back off.
In social situations, the movement of an elephant's ears can signal joy, excitement, dominance, and coordination of group behavior. “When elephants are highly emotional, e.g. greeting family members after a period of separation, they often flap their ears quickly,” Pardo says. It's their way of saying, “Hey, I missed you! Where have you been?”
Elephants are amazing listeners
Elephants' ears also help them hear wide range of sounds, especially in the low frequency range. While elephants certainly make a variety of sounds that humans can hear, most of their communication occurs at frequencies too low for us to hear. These low-frequency sounds have a longer wavelength, and trees and vegetation are less likely to interfere with them. This allows these sounds to travel much further through dense forests or vast savannas, making elephants impressive listeners. Some elephants can even hear sounds more than 6 miles (10 kilometers) away.
Elephants' ears also help them more accurately identify where noise is coming from. “Their large ears help direct sound waves into their eardrums,” Wittemeier says. “Elephants take advantage of this. You can see that when they listen, they stand up and their ears stick out.” This can help them identify threats and increase your chances of survival for tomorrow.
While they don't give elephants the ability to fly like Dumbo, elephants' massive ears are something of a superpower. They help them communicate over long distances, cool down in the heat of the savannah, protect themselves and even show how much they miss each other.
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