User:32Dugg/African bush elephant

Social behavior
Elephant family in Amboseli National Park, Kenya

Young bulls in a bachelor group in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe

The core of elephant society is the family unit, which comprises several adult cows, their daughters, and their prepubertal sons. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, who observed African bush elephants for 4.5 years in Lake Manyara National Park, coined the term 'kinship group' for two or more family units that have close ties. The family unit is led by a matriarch who at times also leads the kinship group. Groups cooperate in locating food and water, in self-defense, and in caring for offspring (termed allomothering). Group size varies seasonally and between locations. In Tsavo East and Tsavo West National Parks, groups are bigger in the rainy season and areas with open vegetation. Aerial surveys in the late 1960s to early 1970s revealed an average group size of 6.3 individuals in Uganda's Rwenzori National Park and 28.8 individuals in Chambura Game Reserve. In both sites, elephants aggregated during the wet season, whereas groups were smaller in the dry season. A bull elephant stretching up to break off a branch in the Okavango Delta, Botswana

Young bulls gradually separate from the family unit when they are between 10 and 19 years old. They range alone for some time or form all-male groups. A 2020 study highlighted the importance of old bulls for the navigation and survival of herds and raised concerns over the removal of old bulls as "currently occur[ring] in both legal trophy hunting and illegal poaching".

Temperature Regulation
It was first hypothesized that African bush elephants sustain the intense savanna heat by performing heterothermy or matching their internal temperature with the environment. Instead, African bush elephants have curved skin that generates bending cracks which support thermoregulation by water retention. These bending cracks also contribute to an evaporative cooling process which causes elephants to maintain their body temperature regardless of air temperature via homeothermy.