asian elephant - ZAWA-Evolved/ZAWA GitHub Wiki

(image by ClimbableChunky)

The Asian elephant is a giant megafauna animal. Native to India and Southeast Asia, they are closely related to the African bush elephant and have similar care needs.

In real life, Asian elephants are the smaller, but no less intelligent, major species of elephant. Elephants have been a novelty in zoos, collections, circuses and even as war animals for millennia, but modern animal research shows that they are much more complex animals than once thought.

Asian elephants are rare spawns in dry rainforest biomes. They spawn in family groups of 3-4 animals. Male elephants are rare, and represent only 20% of wild spawns. Males can be identified from a distance by their large tusks.

The elephants are a medium-speed, territorial animal and will charge at players to try and spook them away. Once out of range, elephants will ignore players and return to their regular behavior.

Their large size, territorial nature and herding nature means Asian elephants are not an animal to be approached without purpose. Keepers should be sure to bring a tranquilizer gun and darts to subdue the whole herd to prevent being attacked by herdmates while capturing one animal. Elephants can only be captured and transported with capture cages.

Asian elephants can be tamed with herbivore kibble.

Asian elephants have 50 hearts (100 points) of health, can deal 7 hearts (14 points) of damage, and drop 3 large meat, 2 bones, and 4 leather upon death.

Elephants are giant animals with massive food needs. They eat a herbivore diet, consisting of fibrous plant roughage.

Elephants can use the boomer ball, scented ball, hanging browse, sprinkler, puzzle feeder, salt lick, and apple ice treat enrichment items.

Asian elephants are a low fertility species, and can be bred with jungle leaves. As giant-sized animals they have a gestation time of 88000 ticks, and give birth to 1 calf that will take 7 1/3 minecraft days to reach adulthood.

(note: exhibit building sections contain a mix of gameplay information and building advice. Not all recommendations are necessary to keep animals happy, fed, and watered, but can help players build a realistic enclosure.)

Asian elephants live in small family groups, and keepers should be ready to house several. They need company to thrive, and facilities should be able to accommodate 3-5 animals, at least.

Because of their size, their social nature, and their natural tendency to roam for miles each day, Asian elephant exhibits need to be open-aired and expansive. Keepers who can't provide this, or meet the massive food needs of several elephants, should work on building up farms and block resources before attempting to keep elephants.

As a mostly peaceful forest-dwelling animal, mixed species exhibits with Asian elephants may be doable. Housing small primates or ringneck parrots with elephants can be done safely. Junglefowl can also clean up spilled feed and prevent rodent infestations.

While elephants do not jump or climb fences, visitors might. Building strong, tall fences, or inaccessible moats and pits, to keep unwanted attention away from them is a necessity.

Elephants walk miles on soft dirt all day, and while once common, research is now pushing zoos away from putting elephants on concrete. Standing on hard surfaces all day for years and years puts immense pressure on the joints of these massive, heavy animals, and can significantly impact their lifespan. If possible, keepers should design exhibits with large areas of dirt, grass or soft sand to pad pachyderms' feet.

Just like their African cousins, Asian elephants love water and don't mind rain. Sprinkler enrichment is good, but full water features are best. If given access to water source blocks, elephants will spray water over themselves in a special animation.

The biggest exhibit building difference between African and Asian elephants is foliage. Asian elephants live in dry rainforests and jungle, instead of open savanna. Keepers should make planting trees, bamboo and lots of other lush greenery a priority. Jungle and dark oak trees provide a great backdrop and a good way to block the line of sight between elephants and visitors or other animals, and can be custom-built to easily mount foraging toys from. Whole downed trees and rotting logs are great, functional landscaping pieces for elephants to play with.

While Asian elephants can tolerate heat, they don't do well in the cold. Keepers in temperate climates should build a shelter large enough to accommodate all of their elephants at once, in case the summer sun or cold snow gets to be too much. For safety, shelters should separate keepers and elephants with a fence or walls with one-block gaps.

Asian elephants have 4 natural variants: Jaipur, Delhi, Bangalore, and Mumbai. These are in-game color variants, not real subspecies.

	Jaipur	Delhi	Bangalore	Mumbai	Baby
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