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Thanks RP
Not the build and ratio I am used to seeing with elephants

We were also quite struck by how small this Bull Ellie's head seemed?

Large

Young elephants grow quickly in height without building mussel and fat, similar to humans where it is common to see boys of 16 - 18 already at approx their adult length but still very thin.

These youngster elephants are at that stage of their lives as the small tusks bear witness.
In time they will build mussel and the bulk of thickset massive bulls. Mature elephant bulls have fat and mussel building up below their ribs and around their bellies, similar to us humans and there for their bellies and chests hang much lower while their legs become thick and muscular with the front legs reaching impressive proportions between approx 25 and 45 years. During this time the bull elephant's trunk similarly becomes much more muscular and particularly thick.
[ Very old bulls often have their trunks becoming thin as their health starts to deteriorate.]

Another feature of mature bulls is that their upper lip covering their tusks keeps growing and covering more and more of the tusks, this can be seen by observing the vertical length of the bulge where the tusk comes out both sides of the trunk - this is relatively small on young adult bulls.

An old elephant also have a fat build-up under their throats, again contributing to a “big head” appearance.

Elephants keep growing taller all their lives although at a much reduced tempo in later life – therefore your tallest bulls standing higher than the rest are usually also the oldest ones.

The fact that so many of these “small headed” bulls were seen in the South of KNP in indicative of a population explosion and this really needs to be addressed, sooner rather than later.

Very interesting info 100ponder, thanks.

During my 3 night stay at Balule I made several trips to the Bangu waterhole and encountered several large bulls as they came down to drink including this magnificent bull. Although he only had one tusk of medium length he was still a very impressive bull.

Beautiful adw. He certainly is a hefty-looking guy and although his tusk is relatively short, its very thick.

Got these three amazing animals near Phunda-Maria early November last year

This guy kept on chasing all the cars

The largest elephant we have ever seen near olifants restcamp

magnificent, majestic

He certainly looks mean, t-bal. Mean and marvellous.

Hi all, does anyone know what could cause this "droopy ear" defect of this ellie seen at Nsemani dam near Satara. I know there was a bull elephant seen at Satara webcam with the same defect, don't know what happened to him though.....


Droopy ear by twigga2011, on Flickr

Ello, unfortunately I don't have an answer to the floppy ear, but if anyone does please mention, it is a rather weird occurrence.

Here are a few picks from the last visit to Kruger. We spent one afternoon parked next to Klopperfontein dam where we were fortunate to watch a group of 5 elephant playing in the water for hours.




With the next picture, any idea if the highlighted area contains a wound from a fight or other conflict?

Klopperfontein
thank you

About the floppy ear: I stand to be corrected but apparently it is caused by a full body fungal or viral infection that an animal can get when they are younger and often results in floppy ears, this can be found in dogs and cats as well.

Lovely pics Ranred. I love watching elephants in the water and these pics really capture the moment.

It seems that Floppy Ear is caused when elephants get their heads wedged in a tight place and the withdrawal causes the cartilage of the ear to break, but not the skin. (Biology, Medicine, and Surgery of Elephants By Murray E. Fowler and Susan K. Mikota). I don't know about the virus or fungal disorder and cant find anything about it in elephants - that's not to say that it may not be so.