I don't think that the butting would work as well as the pull. Butting places all the force on the forehead area, which in an elephant is relatively unreinforced. The lower part of an elephant's skull is strong, in order to support the weight of tusks.
In pulling, the weight is distriubuted across (mostly) the load-bearing shoulders and limb bones (and musculature). I have not seen "push" figures, but for the pull I've seen quotes of 500 kilos to "half its weight" (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/06/20/ING2976LBP1.DTL).
It occurs to me that the proper way to measure this is force, not weight being dragged, because the surface interface between the weight and ground would make all the difference.
What you're looking for, I think, would be how much pull an elephant can exert against a horizonal rope or chain which runs over a pulley and is lifing a heavy weight vertically.
It's certainly in the thousands of pounds, but an elephant's legs don't grip the ground well enough to make this approach his own weight. He wouldn't have the traction. (An animal with that much traction would be able to climb well, and elephant's can't do that.)
Random aside: When shipping elephants, hundreds of years ago, arriving ships would simply herd the animals off the side of the ship -- they would hit the water, then swim ashore -- and not overstress the loading ramps.
I don't yet see a direct measurement of pull or push capacity. I certainly expect that it is going to be large compared to humans, and rather less impressive on a pure power-to-weight ratio basis.
And less powerful than, say, a blue whale -- who can swim faster than the "tiny-by-comparison" elephant can run.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-01-25 08:02 pm (UTC)In pulling, the weight is distriubuted across (mostly) the load-bearing shoulders and limb bones (and musculature). I have not seen "push" figures, but for the pull I've seen quotes of 500 kilos to "half its weight" (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/06/20/ING2976LBP1.DTL).
It occurs to me that the proper way to measure this is force, not weight being dragged, because the surface interface between the weight and ground would make all the difference.
What you're looking for, I think, would be how much pull an elephant can exert against a horizonal rope or chain which runs over a pulley and is lifing a heavy weight vertically.
It's certainly in the thousands of pounds, but an elephant's legs don't grip the ground well enough to make this approach his own weight. He wouldn't have the traction. (An animal with that much traction would be able to climb well, and elephant's can't do that.)
Random aside: When shipping elephants, hundreds of years ago, arriving ships would simply herd the animals off the side of the ship -- they would hit the water, then swim ashore -- and not overstress the loading ramps.
I don't yet see a direct measurement of pull or push capacity. I certainly expect that it is going to be large compared to humans, and rather less impressive on a pure power-to-weight ratio basis.
And less powerful than, say, a blue whale -- who can swim faster than the "tiny-by-comparison" elephant can run.
===|==============/ Level Head
no subject
Date: 2006-01-29 09:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-29 01:39 pm (UTC)===|==============/ Level Head