Living

Elephants are revered in India as the guardians of nature and symbols of the Hindu god Ganesh. In the forests and plains surrounding the Anamalai mountain range, elephants roam freely. Take a look at this lush environment and the amazing animals that live together within its beautiful boundaries. Narrated by Anne Bancroft. Elephants are in their own Order  which has but a single living family but there are fossil elephant ancestors in various families going back 38 million years that include within the lineage the huge mammoths of the Pleistocene. Today's living elephants are the largest land mammals on earth. Elephants have always been regarded with awe and fascination, mainly because of their great size and because of their trunk and formidable tusks, but also because of their longevity, their ability to learn and remember, and their adaptability as working animals. For millennia, their great strength has been exploited in agriculture and warfare and even today, notably in the Indian subcontinent, they are still important economically and as cultural symbols. And in some Indian parks the visitor may take "elephant rides" into the forest on a domesticated elephant in search of tigers and adventure. Wild Indian Elephants are now an Endangered. species.