Unique qualities of the African Elephant
Elephants:
- One thing that is unique to elephants is that they have no pleura cavity. Elephant lungs attach directly to the walls of the chest cavity and to the diaphragm. Respiratory movements are dependent on chest musculature, not on inflating lungs by negative pressure in the pleura cavity, as is usual in mammals (12). This allows the elephants to use their lungs under extreme pressure changes, for example when the body is underwater and the trunk above water.