An elephants' graveyard (also called elephant graveyard, elephant's graveyard, or elephants' cemetery) is a place where, according to legend, old elephants instinctively direct themselves when they reach a certain age. [1] According to this legend, these elephants would then die there alone, far from the group. However, there is no evidence in support of the existence of the elephants' graveyard. [2]
Several theories have been proposed to explain the origin of this myth. One theory involves people finding groups of elephant skeletons together, or observing old elephants and skeletons in the same habitat. [3] Others suggest the term may spring from group die-offs, such as one excavated in Saxony-Anhalt, which had 27 Palaeoloxodon antiquus skeletons. [4] In that particular case, the tusks of the skeletons were missing, which indicated either hunters killed a group of elephants in one spot, or else opportunistic scavengers removed the tusks from a natural die-off.[ citation needed ]
Other theories focus on elephant behavior during lean times, suggesting starving or elderly elephants who have worn their teeth down to a point that they can no longer chew tougher foods gather in places where finding food is easier, and subsequently die there. [5] Prolific elephant hunter Walter "Karamojo" Bell discounted the idea of the elephant's graveyard, stating that bones and "tusks were still lying about in the bush where they had lain for years". [6]
The idea of a graveyard for elephants was popularized in films such as Trader Horn and MGM's Tarzan films, in which groups of greedy explorers attempt to locate the elephants' graveyard, on the fictional Mutia Escarpment, in search of its riches of ivory. [7] Osamu Tezuka's Kimba the White Lion episode "A Friend in Deed" centered around it.[ citation needed ]
Disney's 1994 animated musical film The Lion King has a reference to this motif, as well as its musical adaptation and the 2019 remake of the film. In "Fearful Symmetry", an episode from The X-Files which revolves around a mysterious invisible elephant, a character refers to this.[ citation needed ]
The episode "Ndovu's Last Journey" of The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest centers around an elephant, Ndovu, as it seeks to make the journey to the elephants' graveyard.
Additionally the term "elephants' graveyard" has been deliberately used in a symbolic fashion to refer to specific paleontological sites, such as the elephant-fossil deposit that René Jeannel, professor at the French National Museum of Natural History, discovered during a Kenya & Ethiopia expedition in 1932. [11]
Pellucidar is a fictional Hollow Earth invented by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs for a series of action adventure stories. In a crossover event, Tarzan, who was also created by Burroughs, visits Pellucidar.
The Red "Lady" of Paviland is an Upper Paleolithic partial male skeleton dyed in red ochre and buried in Wales 33,000 BP. The bones were discovered in 1823 by William Buckland in an archaeological dig at Goat's Hole Cave which is a limestone cave between Port Eynon and Rhossili on the Gower Peninsula, near Swansea in south Wales. Buckland believed the skeleton was a Roman era female. Later, William Solace examined Goat's Cave Paviland in 1912. There, Solace found flint arrow heads and tools and correctly concluded that the skeleton was in fact a male hunter-gatherer or warrior during the last Ice Age. Over the last 100 years, more advanced dating procedures have shifted the age from the Mesolithic period to the Palaeolithic era of the last Ice Age.
A safari is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in Southeast Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an important part of the safari market, both for wildlife viewing and big-game hunting.
A mastodon is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus Mammut. Mastodons inhabited North and Central America from the late Miocene up to their extinction at the end of the Pleistocene 10,000 to 11,000 years ago. Mastodons are the most recent members of the family Mammutidae, which diverged from the ancestors of elephants at least 25 million years ago. M. americanum, the American mastodon, is the youngest and best-known species of the genus. They lived in herds and were predominantly forest-dwelling animals. M. americanum is inferred to have had a browsing diet with a preference for woody material, distinct from that of the contemporary Columbian mammoth. Mastodons became extinct as part of the Quaternary extinction event that exterminated most Pleistocene megafauna present in the Americas, believed to have been caused by a combination of climate changes at the end of the Pleistocene and hunting by recently arrived Paleo-Indians, as evidenced by a number of kill sites where mastodon remains are associated with human artifacts.
Palaeoloxodon is an extinct genus of elephant. The genus originated in Africa during the Early Pleistocene, and expanded into Eurasia at the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene. The genus contains some of the largest known species of elephants, over 4 metres (13 ft) tall at the shoulders, including the African Palaeoloxodon recki, the European straight-tusked elephant and the South Asian Palaeoloxodon namadicus. P. namadicus has been suggested to be the largest known land mammal by some authors based on extrapolation from fragmentary remains, though these estimates are highly speculative. In contrast, the genus also contains many species of dwarf elephants that evolved via insular dwarfism on islands in the Mediterranean, some only 1 metre (3.3 ft) in height, making them the smallest elephants known. The genus has a long and complex taxonomic history, and at various times, it has been considered to belong to Loxodonta or Elephas, but today is usually considered a valid and separate genus in its own right.
Gomphotheres are an extinct group of proboscideans related to modern elephants. They were widespread across Afro-Eurasia and North America during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs and dispersed into South America during the Pleistocene as part of the Great American Interchange. Gomphotheres are a paraphyletic group that is ancestral to Elephantidae, which contains modern elephants, as well as Stegodontidae. While most famous forms such as Gomphotherium had long lower jaws with tusks, which is the ancestral condition for the group, some later members developed shortened (brevirostrine) lower jaws with either vestigial or no lower tusks, looking very similar to modern elephants, an example of parallel evolution, which outlasted the long-jawed gomphotheres. By the end of the Early Pleistocene, gomphotheres became extinct in Afro-Eurasia, with the last two genera, Cuvieronius ranging from southern North America to western South America, and Notiomastodon having a wide range over most of South America until the end of the Pleistocene around 12,000 years ago, when they became extinct following the arrival of humans.
African elephants are members of the genus Loxodonta comprising two living elephant species, the African bush elephant and the smaller African forest elephant. Both are social herbivores with grey skin, but differ in the size and colour of their tusks and in the shape and size of their ears and skulls.
The Legend of Tarzan is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation, based on Tarzan from the novels written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the character's original creator who appears in one episode of the series. The series is also based on Disney's 1999 animated feature film Tarzan by Walt Disney Pictures and aired initially on the Disney's One Too block on UPN. However, reruns were broadcast shortly after on Toon Disney.
Deinotheriidae is a family of prehistoric elephant-like proboscideans that lived during the Cenozoic era, first appearing in Africa, then spreading across southern Asia (Indo-Pakistan) and Europe. During that time, they changed very little, apart from growing much larger in size; by the late Miocene, they had become the largest land animals of their time. Their most distinctive features were their lack of upper tusks and downward-curving tusks on the lower jaw.
Prodeinotherium is an extinct representative of the family Deinotheriidae that lived in Africa, Europe, and Asia in the early and middle Miocene. Prodeinotherium, meaning "before terrible beast", was first named in 1930, but soon after, the only species in it, P. hungaricum, was reassigned to Deinotherium. During the 1970s, however, the two genera were once again separated, with Prodeinotherium diagnosed to include Deinotherium bavaricum, Deinotherium hobleyi, and Deinotherium pentapotamiae, which were separated based on geographic location. The three species are from Europe, Africa, and Asia, respectively. However, because of usage of few characters to separate them, only one species, P. bavaricum, or many more species, including P. cuvieri, P. orlovii, and P. sinense may be possible.
The New Adventures of Tarzan is a 1935 American film serial in 12 chapters starring Herman Brix. The serial presents a more authentic version of the character than most other film adaptations, with Tarzan as the cultured and well-educated gentleman in the original Edgar Rice Burroughs novels. It was filmed during the same period as the Johnny Weissmuller/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Tarzan films. Film exhibitors had the choice of booking the serial in 12 episodes, the feature film, or the feature film followed by 11 episodes of the serial.
Tarzan the Ape Man is a 1932 pre-Code American action adventure film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer featuring Edgar Rice Burroughs' famous jungle hero Tarzan and starring Johnny Weissmuller, Neil Hamilton, C. Aubrey Smith and Maureen O'Sullivan. It was Weissmuller's first of 12 Tarzan films. O'Sullivan played Jane in six features between 1932 and 1942. The film is loosely based on Burroughs' 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes, with the dialogue written by Ivor Novello. The film was directed by W.S. Van Dyke. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released two remakes of Tarzan, the Ape Man in 1959 and in 1981, but each was a different adaptation of Rice Burroughs' novel. It is also the first appearance of Tarzan's famous yell.
Tarzan and His Mate is a 1934 American pre-Code action adventure film based on the Tarzan character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Directed by Cedric Gibbons, it was the second in the Tarzan film series and starred Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan.
Tarzan & Jane is a 2002 American animated adventure comedy film produced by Walt Disney Television Animation, Released on July 23, 2002, it is a direct-to-video spin-off to the Disney's 1999 animated feature Tarzan, and uses three then-unaired episodes of the film's corresponding television series, The Legend of Tarzan. Tarzan II, a prequel to both films, was released in 2005. The film is set one year after the events of the first film and Tarzan and Jane are married.
Tantor is a generic name for elephants in Mangani, the fictional language of the great apes in the Tarzan novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In Burroughs's works a number of elephants appear under the name of Tantor, most notably one particular bull elephant the ape man befriends in his youth in the first Tarzan novel, Tarzan of the Apes and in the 1999 animated Walt Disney film he is a red African forest elephant and friends with the ape Terk.
Tarzan's Hidden Jungle is a 1955 black-and-white film from RKO Pictures directed by Harold D. Schuster and starring Gordon Scott in his first film as Tarzan, taking over the role from Lex Barker, who had in turn followed Johnny Weissmuller in the series. The film about Edgar Rice Burroughs' ape-man also features Vera Miles and Jack Elam. The last of twelve Tarzan pictures released by RKO before the rights returned to MGM and the eighteenth overall film of the Tarzan film series that began with 1932's Tarzan the Ape Man, it was followed by Tarzan and the Lost Safari in 1957.
The African bush elephant, also known as the African savanna elephant, is one of two extant African elephant species and one of three extant elephant species. It is the largest living terrestrial animal, with bulls reaching a shoulder height of up to 3.96 m and a body mass of up to 10.4 t.
Notiomastodon is an extinct genus of gomphothere proboscidean, endemic to South America from the Pleistocene to the beginning of the Holocene. Notiomastodon specimens reached a size similar to that of the modern Asian elephant. Like other brevirostrine gomphotheres such as Cuvieronius and Stegomastodon, Notiomastodon had a shortened lower jaw and lacked lower tusks.
The destruction of ivory is a technique used by governments and conservation groups to deter the poaching of elephants for their tusks and to suppress the illegal ivory trade. As of 2016, more than 263 tonnes (580,000 lb) of ivory have been destroyed, typically by burning or crushing, in these high-profile events in 21 countries around the world. Kenya held the first event in 1989, as well as the largest event in 2016, when a total of 105 tonnes (231,000 lb) of ivory were incinerated.
The Mombasa tusks, also referred to as Mapemba ya Ndovu or Pembe za Ndovu, form a monument over Moi Avenue, a major thoroughfare in Mombasa, Kenya. Built in the 1950s to commemorate visits by the British royal family, the monument originally comprised two wooden structures resembling tusks; nowadays, there are four aluminium tusks in an M shape. The monument is under the jurisdiction of the National Museums of Kenya in addition to the city's municipal government.
