Meet Africa's natural salt miners. Large herbivores such as elephants often seek
out natural mineral deposits such as rocks and soil to supplement their dietary
intake of sodium whenever the mineral is not obtained in adequate quantities from
woody plants and natural water which elephants consume.
It is not uncommon to find elephants devouring soil and licking rocks high in
sodium content. Here are some of nature's best salt miners. Enjoy! :)
In Mount Elgon National Park on the Kenya-Uganda border, however, elephants have
taken this activity a step further - they have learned to quarry sodium-rich rocks
on the base of a 24-million-years-old extinct volcano called Mount Elgon.
Mount Elgon is believed to be the oldest extinct volcano in East Africa.
Because of its unusually large form - an 80 kilometer wide base and a peak
that rises 3,000 meters from the surrounding plains - Mount Elgon doesn't have
the typical sharp rise of a volcanic mountain.
The elephants prefer to stay in the lower slopes, where there are a number of
caves and salt is plenty. These caves are quite voluminous, with up to 150 meters
long, 60 meters wide, and some 10 meters high. There is evidence that these caves
have been artificially expanded by thousands of years of mining - not by humans,
but by the pachyderms.
The elephants use their tusks to break off pieces of the cave wall, which they
then chew and swallow, leaving long scratch marks all over the cave walls.
The elephants chisel the rocks for several hours and eat large quantities of
salt at a time, since they usually do not return until several weeks later.
The elephants have a voracious appetite for salt. From An observation of a young calf
feeding himself rocks inside Kitum Cave in Mount Elgon, researchers estimate that
on average, an elephant excavate about two liters volume of rocks from the cave.
Aside from elephants, other animals such as bushbuck and buffaloes are also drawn
to the salt in the caves. It's unlikely the animals know they need salt in their
diet. The behavior is mostly instinctive, developed over thousands of years, and
by leading their young into the caves, the knowledge has been passed on through
the generations.
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