The Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus), also known as the Asiastic elephant, is a species of elephant that is distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, from India in the west, Nepal in the north, Sumatra in the south, and to Borneo in the east.
They are smaller than their relatives, the African bush elephant, and have many other physical features that distinguish them. The ears are smaller and the back is more rounded so that the crown of the head is the highest point of the body. One of the characteristic features of an elephant are the modified incisor teeth which are known as tusks, however, only some male Asian elephants have tusks, whilst females (cows) have 'tushes' instead, that are seldom visible. Elephants support their stocky body on stout, pillar-like legs, and the nose and upper lip are joined and elongated into a trunk. The trunk provides a wide variety of functions from feeding, vocalization, bathing and fighting; those of the Asian elephant have only a single finger-like process on the base, whilst the African elephant has two. The thick, wrinkly skin covering the body is a grayish-brown color and very dry.