Pictures: How elephants keep themselves cool
- Published
Scientists from Canada have used thermal imaging cameras to find out how these Asian elephants at a zoo in Florida keep themselves cool.
During the day, the elephants flick mud and dirt onto their backs to cool themselves down and protect themselves from the sun. And it works - the cameras showed that the elephants were able to stay at a steady temperature all over, appearing mostly as red except for the cooler green-blue bits on their backs.
At night, the pictures looked very different. The hottest body parts were the eyes and the trunk, but their backs were much cooler- shown as blue and green - which meant the mud on their backs was still keeping them cool.
The ears show up as totally blue, which means they are cool and not releasing any body heat. Asian elephants have much smaller ears than their African cousins. The African elephant loses lots of heat through its huge ears and uses them to help it stay cool, unlike the Asian elephant here.
The study has really got scientists thinking - why do Asian elephants use their trunks to help them lose body heat, but the African elephants do not? It's a question that elephants experts are yet to answer.
The study will help the keepers at the zoo look after the elephants better. It means they now know how the animals store body heat overnight and when the best time is to shelter them indoors.
