CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM
Since asian elephants have such large bodies, they must have a sizable heart to ensure that blood can flow through the entire body at a proper blood pressure. The blood that travels has to have adequate oxygen supply to travel through the elephants tissues. The elephant’s haemoglobin must have an increased affinity for oxygen in comparison to other mammals. With increased haemoglobin it brings ease to the amount of work that the heart has to do when blood is carried to the rest of the body. The heart pumps about 28 times every minute whereas a human heart will pump about 70 times in a minute. Elephants however have a higher blood pressure than humans because their blood vessels are larger. Their vessels can reach a length of approximately 3.5 meters long. In order to prevent the veins and arteries from collapsing from size, the blood pressure needs to be high.
Their arteries carry blood away from the heart and are supported by elastic fibers made up of muscle cells. The elephant's veins carry blood from the body back to the heart that has a thick wall of support. Their ventricles in the heart are separated at the apex and are larger than it’s heart chambers. The smaller atrium will pump blood out of the heart and the venae cavae will carry blood from the lower portion of the body into the right atrium. The two work together as a pair instead of individual organs. A fatal disease that is commonly found in Asian elephants is the herpesvirus-hemorrhagic disease (EEHV-HD). The virus typically affects the younger elephants of ages 1 to 8 years old with a death rate of 80 percent. It attacks the elephant's inner lining of small blood vessels and capillaries which causes acute hemorrhagic disease. In North America there is an estimate of 65 percent death rate of captive-born Asian elephants from EEHV diseases. |