Elephant Facts

Elephant Facts

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1. Once common throughout Africa and Asia, elephant numbers were severely depleted in the 19th century, largely due to the massive ivory trade. While some populations are now stable, poaching and habitat destruction continue to threaten the species.

2. The elephant has the longest gestation period of any mammal at 22 months.

3. Healthy adult elephants have no natural predators.

4. The African elephant is the largest animal walking the Earth. Their herds wander through 37 countries in Africa.

5. In addition to being smaller, forest elephants are darker and their tusks are straighter and point downward.

6. Elephants need to eat an average of 150 kg per day to survive.

7. Elephant herds follow ancient seasonal migration routes. It is the task of the eldest elephant to lead the herd along these routes.

8. Tusks, which are large modified incisors that grow throughout an elephant’s lifetime, occur in both males and females and are used in fights and for marking, feeding, and digging.

9. Elephants do indeed have excellent memories and can recognize faces and locations that they have not seen in years.

10. An African bull elephant’s ear weighs about 100 lbs (45kg)!

11. Elephants are unique animals in that they identify and care for elephant bones.

12. Elephants have an extraordinary sense of smell, which is said to be many times more discriminating than that of a bloodhound.

13. Elephants have very large and complex brains. At an average of 4.8 kg the elephant brain is the largest among living and extinct terrestrial mammals.

14. The behavior of elephants both in the wild and in captivity suggests that elephants are able to use their long-term memories to “keep score” and to extract “revenge” for wrongs done.

15. Elephants are the largest living species of land animal - and they get so large by eating a diet largely made up of leafy greens!

16. Elephants can reach speeds of over 40km/h but but they cannot jump. A ditch too wide to step across or an incline too steep to climb is a reliable barrier for elephants. Using their trunks as snorkels and by swallowing air to regulate buoyancy, elephants are great swimmers!

17. A lady’s high heel has greater pressure per square centimetre than an elephant’s foot!

18. The closest living relatives to the elephant are manatees and hippopotami - imagine those family picnics!

19. Elephants are members of the pachyderm family. The word comes from the Greek words for “thick skinned”.The skin of an elephant is about 4 centimeters thick.

20. In 1982 an attendant at the zoo in Prague reported that he had gotten some bad stains on his shirt. He sent the shirt to the laundry, but the stains were still there. On a very hot day at work the attendant took off his shirt and laid it aside. An elephant grabbed the shirt and gulped it down before he could get it back. A day or two later, when the shirt reappeared at the other end, it was still intact; and the stains were gone!

21. An elephants drinks by filling its trunk with water and then pouring the water into its mouth. An elephant can hold about 4 litres of water.

22. Despite their great size, elephants walk almost silently. They have tough, shock-absorbing pads on the bottoms of their feet, and the bones inside are configured so that only the tips reach the soles of the feet. So essentially, elephants do walk on tiptoe!

23. The elephant is the world’s biggest land animal and spends about 16 to 18 hours a day eating to make sure it stays that way!

24. Elephants live in groups called herds. The herd is typically composed of up to 10 females and their young. Once a male reaches adulthood, it leaves the herd and only returns during mating. Elephants within a herd greet each other by touching each other’s mouths with the tips of their trunks and greet their trainers with trunk hugs and vocalizations.

25. There are two kinds of elephants: the Indian elephant and the African elephant.

26. An elephant has about 150,000 muscles in its trunk.

27. An adult male elephant produces up to 200 kilograms of dung per day! Birds and animals feed on the seeds in the dung.

28. An elephant’s tusk is sharp enough to pierce the metal of a car.

29. An elephant’s ear is up to one metre wide.

30. An elephant’s feet carry a weight of up to 6000 kilograms.

31. Elephants push down trees to eat the leaves on the highest branches. An elephant can knock down a tree that is nine metres tall.