A Brown Elephant?

Today’s elephant is brown.  Hmm… that had me wondering what colour are elephants?

There are three recognised species of elephant - the Asian elephant, the African savanna elephant and the African forest elephant. 

Elephants are mostly grey in colour. African elephants have thick (up 30 mm or 1.2 inches) grey folded skin.  The baggy skin is covered with sparse, bristled dark-brown to black hair.

While the natural colour is greyish black, an elephant usually looks to be the same colour as the soil where the elephant lives. 

African and Asian elephants have skin colour ranging from dark grey to brown.  As Asian elephants get older, they develop patches of pinkish-peach skin on their faces, trunks, and ears. 

Pink elephants do exist in nature but they are extremely rare.  Albino elephants can appear to be pink as well as white. A white elephant known as chang samkhan in Thai, actually translates as ‘auspicious elephant’. Being White stands for purity.  White or albino elephants are known to suffer many complications in the wild.  Their lack of pigments cause their eyes and skin to be very sensitive to the sun and because of their unusual appearance they are often rejected by their own species.

Did you know there are red elephants too?  The red elephants of Tsavo National Park in Kenya are the only red elephants in the world.  In reality they are the same colour as every other elephant but they appear red because they are constantly dust-bathing using the Park’s fine red volcanic soil.

Mud baths serve a critical purpose for elephants. The heat and UV radiation caused by the harsh African sun can be deadly.  Because they have few sweat glands and very little hair on their skin, elephants have to find other ways to cool off.  Elephants wallow in the water or mud, to keep the bugs at bay, cool their bodies and protect their skin from the sun.

Elephants can gather sand and mud with their trunks and throw it onto their bodies.  Sand helps dry and warm their skin in the cooler months, while mud helps to keep them cool in the hotter months.  Shaking the dust or caked mud off their bodies also removes dead skin and many unwanted critters.  Elephants can use their trunks like built-in garden hoses, to spray their skin with dust or water.

Mahouts will often bathe with their elephants in captivity as an expression of trust and affection.  The mahouts are then able to help clean the harder to reach spots to ensure that their elephant is thoroughly cleaned.

# living life abundantly    # published author