Question

Put together a one page “cheat sheet” focusing on comparing elephants to humans. Include at least one picture with each system to help illustrate your answers. Cardiopulmonary Systems How does the internal structure of the heart compare to humans? What effect does this have on the efficiency of this system in your animal? How does this organism obtain oxygen? How is this related to the structure of its cardiopulmonary systems? Immune System Does this animal have an immune system? If so, is it adaptive or innate (or both)? What type(s) of diseases is this animal prone to? How do they compare to diseases that humans are susceptible to? Reproductive System How does the female reproductive system (or just the reproductive system in general if this animal is hermaphroditic or doesn’t have sexes) in this animal compare to humans? How many offspring does this animal tend to have at a time? How does that relate to the structure of its reproductive system?

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Answer 1

Cardiopulmonary system

The circulatory system and respiratory system of elephant is built to accommodate the large demand of nutrition and oxygen. But they are almost same as the human system differing in size and some minor details only. The heart of the elephant can weigh 28 kilograms. The ventricleventricles are seperated at the apex. Red blood cell count is much lower in elephant compared to humans.Due to their enormous size, arteries are supported by ridges of elastic fibers or muscles cells. The veins are supported by having proportionately thicker walls than humans. The blood vessels of the elephant can achieve lengths of up to 350 cm, which require a high blood pressure in order to prevent their collapse if they had thin walls.

Elephant obtain oxygen through their trunk, nostrils and lung. Elephants have had to adapt to gravitational stresses imposed on their very large respiratory structures. A distensible network of collagen fibers fills the pleural space, loosely connects lung to chest wall but appears not to constrain lung-chest wall movements. Myriad spaces within the network and its rich supply of capillaries suggest effective local sources and sinks for pleural fluid that may replace the gravity-dependent flows of smaller mammals. The lung is partitioned into approximately equal to 1 cm3 parenchymal units by a system of thick, elastic septa that ramify throughout the lung from origins on the lung's elastic external capsule. Parenchymal units suspended upon the elastic septal system protect dependent alveoli from compression, thereby reducing the usual gravitational gradient of lung expansion. Intra-pulmonary airways are devoid of cartilage, instead they appear to derive resistance to collapse from tethering forces of the attached septa.

Immune system

Elephants do have an immune system. They have both innate and adaptive immune system. It's a combination of both. Elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV) remains one of the most serious threats to the health and survival of Asian elephants. The elephant are nearly immune to cancer unlike humans. And the elephant have heterophils rather than nutrophils in wbc types.

Reproductive system

The reproductive system of elelephants are comparable to that of humans. They are not hermaphrodite. They have male and female similar to humans. But unlike humans, the testicles of  elephants are placed internally. Only the "penis" is visible outside. The female elephant have ovary, oviduct, uterus, cervix and vagina. They even have a "clitoris" similar to human female. The elephant tend to have one offspring at a time. This is because the vaginal orifice and womb is very small compared to the size of elephant, so they can't accommodate twins or triplets.