Elephant in the context of Big five game

Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentin, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mammals is the same, regardless of the species of origin, but ivory contains structures of mineralised collagen. The trade in certain teeth and tusks other than elephant is well established and widespread; therefore, "ivory" can correctly be used to describe any mammalian teeth or tusks of commercial interest which are large enough to be carved or scrimshawed.

Besides natural ivory, ivory can also be produced synthetically, hence (unlike natural ivory) not requiring the retrieval of the material from animals. Tagua nuts can also be carved like ivory.

A roar /rɔːr/ is a type of animal vocalization that is loud, deep and resonating. Many mammals have evolved to produce roars and other roar-like vocals for purposes such as long-distance communication and intimidation. These include various species of big cats, bears, pinnipeds, deer, bovids, elephants, and simians.

The anatomical basis for the ability to roar often involves modifications to the larynx and hyoid bone and enlarged internal air spaces for low-frequency vocal resonation. While roaring, animals may stretch out their necks and elevate their heads to increase the space for resonance.

Tusks are elongated, continuously growing front teeth that protrude well beyond the mouth of certain mammal species. They are most commonly canine teeth, as with narwhals, chevrotains, musk deer, water deer, muntjac, pigs, peccaries, hippopotamuses and walruses, or, in the case of elephants, elongated incisors. Tusks share common features such as extra-oral position, growth pattern, composition and structure, and lack of contribution to ingestion. In most tusked species both the males and the females have tusks although the males' are larger. Most mammals with tusks have a pair of them growing out from either side of the mouth. Tusks are generally curved and have a smooth, continuous surface. The male narwhal's straight single helical tusk, which usually grows out from the left of the mouth, is an exception to the typical features of tusks described above. Continuous growth of tusks is enabled by formative tissues in the apical openings of the roots of the teeth.

Other than mammals, dicynodonts are the only known vertebrates to have true tusks.

Megaherbivores (Greek μέγας megas "large" and Latin herbivora "herbivore") are large herbivores that can exceed 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) in weight. The earliest herbivores to reach such sizes like the pareiasaurs appeared in the Permian period. During most of the Mesozoic, the megaherbivore niche was largely dominated by dinosaurs up until their extinction during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. After this period, small mammalian species evolved into large herbivores in the Paleogene. As part of the Late Pleistocene megafauna extinctions, 80% of megaherbivore species became extinct, with megaherbivores becoming entirely extinct in Europe, Australia and the Americas. Recent megaherbivores include elephants, rhinos, hippos, and giraffes. There are nine extant species of terrestrial megaherbivores living in Africa and Asia. The African bush elephant is the largest extant species.

Extant megaherbivores are keystone species in their environment. They defoliate the landscape and spread a greater number of seeds than other frugivores. Extant megaherbivores, like most large mammals, are K-selected species and are characterized by their large size, relative immunity to predation, their effect on plant species, and their dietary tolerance.

Lucius Caecilius Metellus (c. 290 BC – 221 BC) was the son of Lucius Caecilius Metellus Denter. He was consul in 251 BC and 247 BC, Pontifex Maximus beginning about 243 BC and Dictator in 224 BC.

In 250 BC, his consular powers were prorogued; then, as proconsul, he defeated the Carthaginian general Hasdrubal at the celebrated Battle of Panormus, a turning point of the First Punic War which led to Roman domination of Sicily. In that battle, after which he received the Honours of the Triumph, he defeated thirteen enemy generals and captured one hundred and twenty elephants, some of which he exhibited to the Roman people.

Elephant shrews, also called jumping shrews or sengis, are small insectivorous mammals native to Africa, belonging to the family Macroscelididae, in the order Macroscelidea. Their traditional common English name "elephant shrew" comes from a perceived resemblance between their long noses and the trunk of an elephant, and their superficial similarity with shrews (family Soricidae) in the order Eulipotyphla. However, phylogenetic analysis has revealed that elephant shrews are not properly classified with true shrews, but are in fact more closely related to elephants than to shrews. In 1997, the biologist Jonathan Kingdon proposed that they instead be called "sengis" (singular sengi), a term derived from the Bantu languages of Africa, and in 1998, they were classified into the new clade Afrotheria.

They are widely distributed across the southern part of Africa, and although common nowhere, can be found in almost any type of habitat, from the Namib Desert to boulder-strewn outcrops in South Africa to thick forest. One species, the North African elephant shrew, remains in the semi-arid, mountainous country in the far northwest of Africa. The Somali elephant shrew went unobserved from 1968 to 2020 but was rediscovered by a group of scientists in Djibouti.

Trophy hunting is a form of hunting for sport in which parts of the hunted wild animals are kept and displayed as trophies. The animal being targeted, known as the "game", is typically a mature male specimen from a popular species of collectable interests, usually of large sizes, holding impressive horns, antlers, furs, or manes. Most trophies consist of only select parts of the animal, which are prepared for display by a taxidermist. The parts most commonly kept vary by species but often include the head, hide, tusks, horns, or antlers.

Trophies are often displayed in trophy rooms or game rooms, or in gun rooms along with the hunter's gun collection.

A war elephant is an elephant that is trained and guided by humans for combat purposes. Historically, the war elephant's main use was to charge the enemy, break their ranks, and instill terror and fear. Elephantry is a term for specific military units using elephant-mounted troops.

War elephants played a critical role in several key battles in antiquity, especially in ancient India. While seeing limited and periodic use in Ancient China, they became a permanent fixture in armies of historical kingdoms in Southeast Asia. They were also used in ancient Persia and in the Mediterranean world within armies of Macedon, Hellenistic Greek states, the Roman Republic and later Empire, and Ancient Carthage in North Africa. In some regions they maintained a firm presence on the battlefield throughout the Medieval era. However, their use declined with the spread of firearms and other gunpowder weaponry in early modern warfare. After this, war elephants became restricted to non-combat engineering and labour roles, as well as being used for minor ceremonial uses.

In Greek mythology and religion, the thiasus was the ecstatic retinue of Dionysus, often pictured as inebriated revelers. Many of the myths of Dionysus are connected with his arrival in the form of a procession. The grandest such version was his triumphant return from "India", which influenced symbolic conceptions of the Roman triumph and was narrated in rapturous detail in Nonnus's Dionysiaca. In this procession, Dionysus rides a chariot, often drawn by big cats such as tigers, leopards, or lions, or alternatively elephants or centaurs.

The thiasos of the sea god Poseidon is depicted as a triumphal wedding procession with Amphitrite, attended by figures such as sea nymphs and hippocamps. In historical Greek society, thiasoi (pl.: Greek: θίασοι) were religious organizations whose existence was protected by law.

The flightless dung beetle (Circellium bacchus) is a species of dung beetle endemic to a few areas of South Africa, including the Addo Elephant National Park, Amakhala Game Reserve and the Buffalo Valley Game Farm. It is the only species in the genus Circellium. The loss of flight allows the beetle to use the empty space below the elytra as a carbon dioxide storage tank, creating a unique breathing mechanism which conserves water, a valuable survival trait in the arid regions it lives in.

The species was originally widespread in Southern Africa, but it only survives in the few areas mentioned above; as such, it qualifies as an IUCN vulnerable species. Its vulnerability is exacerbated by a number of other factors, including the fact that its habitat is under threat by agriculture and human activity, that it has low breeding capacity as well as low dispersability (as a consequence of being flightless), and that its survival is strictly dependent on a number of vertebrates (particularly elephant and buffalo) that are also experiencing a decrease in population.

Deciduous teeth or primary teeth, also informally known as baby teeth, milk teeth, or temporary teeth, are the first set of teeth in the growth and development of humans and other diphyodonts, which include most mammals but not elephants, kangaroos, or manatees, which are polyphyodonts. Deciduous teeth develop during the embryonic stage of development and erupt (break through the gums and become visible in the mouth) during infancy. They are usually lost and replaced by permanent teeth, but in the absence of their permanent replacements, they can remain functional for many years into adulthood.

The woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) is an extinct species of mammoth that lived from the Middle Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with the African Mammuthus subplanifrons in the early Pliocene. The woolly mammoth began to diverge from the steppe mammoth about 800,000 years ago in Siberia. Its closest extant relative is the Asian elephant. The Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) lived alongside the woolly mammoth in North America, and DNA studies show that the two hybridised with each other. Mammoth remains were long known in Asia before they became known to Europeans. The origin of these remains was long debated and often explained as the remains of legendary creatures. The mammoth was identified as an extinct elephant species by Georges Cuvier in 1796.

The appearance and behaviour of the woolly mammoth are among the best studied of any prehistoric animal because of the discovery of frozen carcasses in Siberia and North America, as well as skeletons, teeth, stomach contents, dung, and depiction from life in prehistoric cave paintings. It was roughly the same size as modern African elephants. Males reached shoulder heights between 2.67 and 3.49 m (8 ft 9 in and 11 ft 5 in) and weighed between 3.9 and 8.2 t (3.8 and 8.1 long tons; 4.3 and 9.0 short tons). Females reached 2.3–2.6 m (7 ft 7 in – 8 ft 6 in) in shoulder heights and weighed between 2.8–4 t (2.8–3.9 long tons; 3.1–4.4 short tons). A newborn calf weighed about 90 kg (200 lb). The woolly mammoth was well adapted to the cold environments present during glacial periods, including the last ice age. It was covered in fur, with an outer covering of long guard hairs and a shorter undercoat. The colour of the coat varied from dark to light. The ears and tail were short to minimise frostbite and heat loss. It had long, curved tusks and four molars, which were replaced six times during the lifetime of an individual. Its behaviour was similar to that of modern elephants, and it used its tusks and trunk for manipulating objects, fighting, and foraging. The diet of the woolly mammoth was mainly grasses and sedges. Individuals could probably reach the age of 60. Its habitat was the mammoth steppe, which stretched across northern Eurasia and North America.

The hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius; /ˌhɪpəˈpɒtəməs/; pl.: hippopotamuses), often shortened to hippo (pl.: hippos), further qualified as the common hippopotamus, Nile hippopotamus and river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae, the other being the pygmy hippopotamus (Choeropsis liberiensis or Hexaprotodon liberiensis). Its name comes from the Ancient Greek for "river horse" (ἱπποπόταμος).

After elephants and rhinoceroses, the hippopotamus is the next largest land mammal. It is also the largest extant land artiodactyl. Despite their physical resemblance to pigs and other terrestrial even-toed ungulates, the closest living relatives of the hippopotamids are cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises, etc.), from which they diverged about 55 million years ago. Hippos are recognisable for their barrel-shaped torsos, wide-opening mouths with large canine tusks, nearly hairless bodies, short legs, and large size: adults average 1,500 kg (3,300 lb) for bulls (males) and 1,300 kg (2,900 lb) for cows (females).

African elephants are members of the genus Loxodonta comprising two living elephant species, the African bush elephant (L. africana) and the smaller African forest elephant (L. cyclotis). Both are social herbivores with grey skin. However, they differ in the size and colour of their tusks as well as the shape and size of their ears and skulls.

Both species are at a pertinent risk of extinction according to the IUCN Red List; as of 2021, the bush elephant is considered endangered while the forest elephant is considered critically endangered. They are threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, along with poaching for the illegal ivory trade in several range countries.

An elephant joke is a joke cycle, almost always an absurd riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of such, that involves an elephant. Elephant jokes were a fad in the 1960s, with many people constructing large numbers of them according to a set formula. Sometimes they involve parodies or puns.

An example of an elephant joke is:

Xanthosoma is a genus of flowering plants in the arum family, Araceae. The genus is native to tropical America but widely cultivated and naturalized in other tropical regions. Several are grown for their starchy corms, an important food staple of tropical regions, known variously as malanga, otoy, otoe, cocoyam (or new cocoyam), tannia, tannier, yautía, macabo, ocumo, macal, taioba, dasheen, quequisque, ʻape and (in Papua New Guinea) as Singapore taro (taro kongkong). Many other species, including especially Xanthosoma roseum, are used as ornamental plants; in popular horticultural literature these species may be known as ‘ape due to resemblance to the true Polynesian ʻape, Alocasia macrorrhizos, or as elephant ear from visual resemblance of the leaf to an elephant's ear. Sometimes the latter name is also applied to members in the closely related genera Caladium, Colocasia (taro), and Alocasia.

The leaves of most Xanthosoma species are 40–200 centimetres (16–79 inches) long, sagittate (arrowhead-shaped) or subdivided into three or as many as 18 segments. Unlike the leaves of Colocasia, those of Xanthosoma are usually not peltate- the upper v-notch extends into the point of attachment of the leaf petiole to the blade.

The rut (from the Latin rugire, meaning "to roar") is the mating season of certain mammals, which includes ruminants such as deer, sheep, camels, goats, pronghorns, bison, giraffes and antelopes, and extends to others such as skunks and elephants. The rut is characterized in males by an increase in testosterone, exaggerated sexual dimorphisms, increased aggression, and increased interest in females. The males of the species may mark themselves with mud, undergo physiological changes or perform characteristic displays in order to make themselves more visually appealing to the females. Males also use olfaction to entice females to mate using secretions from glands and soaking in their own urine.

During the rut (known as the rutting period and in domestic sheep management as tupping), males often rub their antlers or horns on trees or shrubs, fight with each other, wallow in mud or dust, self-anoint, and herd estrus females together. These displays make the male conspicuous and aid in mate selection.