Why elephants rape rhinos, more than 60 rhinos died between 1990 and 2001, why elephants are so "hungry"
Introduction: As the world's largest animal elephant can be described as a household name, the huge size is also let us daunted, but fortunately the elephant is a herbivores, the docile personality also makes it closer to humans, and even we can see people in India using elephants to carry goods across the river, etc., which makes elephants as kind and not threatening as horses, cattle and other domestic animals in our eyes. But elephants have also raped rhinos.
It began in the 1990s, when there were more than 60 incidents of elephant rape of rhinos between the early 1990s and 2001, but why did elephants, who have always been docile, behave so extremely?
Whenever the animal world is broadcast, we can see the animal disputes in the African savannah, such a vast grassland naturally also gave birth to a lot of animals, rhinoceros as the best of the large herbivores, in this vast grassland to live is also quite carefree, there will be no predators will dare to fight the idea of adult rhinoceros.
In the early 1990s, the staff found many abnormally dead adult rhino carcasses here, and after the staff's examination, it was found that these dead rhino carcasses did not have traces left by poachers' shotguns, nor did they have any hyenas or lions besieging and biting, but they have found very serious fracture-like phenomena in the back, and after a long investigation, the staff found that this rhino carcass died under the rape of elephants.
Elephants, as the largest living land animals, can reach a shoulder height of about three to four meters and a weight of 8 tons. In contrast, rhinos, which are also large herbivores, can only reach a maximum weight of 3 tons. Such a huge weight and size gap also leads to the fact that rhinos are doomed to be unable to escape in the process of encountering being raped by elephants. In general, the elephants that commit rape are almost all adult male elephants, and the desire to attack is very strong, in this case, the average adult rhino is unable to resist and escape.
There are even photographers who have taken video footage of elephants raping rhinos, and in the video footage, elephants. Using a thick nose to entangle the other party for courtship, but unfortunately not the same species of rhinoceros, do not understand what the elephant's behavior is expressing, just want to quickly escape the entanglement of this behemoth, but the elephant feels that his courtship has been rejected, he will be very angry to use his body size advantage to suppress the rhino for forced rape.
In the face of such a large body size gap, as well as the entanglement of the elephant's nose, the rhino is doomed to be unable to escape, and once the elephant is very violent in the process, it does not care about the rhinoceros' feelings, and even in order to prevent the rhino from resisting and breaking free, the elephant will also use its own body to press the rhinoceros, in this case, the rhino is not able to survive.
Why do normally mild-mannered elephants do such things? In fact, part of the reason is caused by humans, because as a social animal elephant, the leader of the colony is usually the mother elephant. The migration, habitat and foraging of the entire herd are subject to the arrangement of the mother elephant leader.
The responsibility of the male elephants is to defend the entire population, the female elephant usually breeds every 4 to 6 years, generally to the fifties will also have fertility, and from infancy to adulthood, the growth process of the elephant is very slow, it takes at least 20 years, and then a part of the juvenile baby elephant will help the female elephant to take care of the younger baby elephant, these baby elephants will be around the mother elephant before they are eight years old.
But when they reach adulthood, the young male elephants who have just reached adulthood will take the initiative to join the male elephant group, and the female elephant group will also accept the adult female elephants. In this way, they will be personally taught by the other elders in the elephant herd in their respective groups, teaching them how to live on their own to find food and all kinds of communication and common sense in the usual elephant group, just as we human beings go to school, and this knowledge needs to be taught to the baby elephants by the old elephants.
But as humans began to destroy the habitat of the elephant herd, many baby elephants lost the protection of their family members, which also led to the fact that they may not have been taught by the old elephants in the group from an early age, and they may not understand the way of showing love between normal elephants. Or that they don't understand what the right elephant mating and reproduction behavior is, and in the eyes of some male elephants, rhinos that have no ability to resist for them become the object of courtship in their eyes. As a result, many rhinos have become innocent victims.
Summary: Therefore, while paying attention to improving their quality of life, human beings should also pay attention to the living environment of other animals, and must not cause other animals to be displaced because of their own selfish interests. Even deviating from their original living environment and life track, the phenomenon of elephants raping rhinos is the first alarm bell, which reminds us to pay attention to the living environment of other animals, so as not to have bigger problems.