They can weigh up to 260 pounds. After two days, they can keep up with the herd. Matriarchs are also responsible for remembering where the best places are to shelter and find food and water. Elephants only sleep for 2 to 3 hours a day. Additionally, they are used for marking trees to establish an elephant’s territory. A newborn human baby weighs an average of 7 pounds while a newborn elephant baby can weigh up to 260 pounds! Elephant behaviour is associated with a unique animal intelligence that displays grief, altruism, compassion, self-awareness, play, art and music! It uses its trunk as a hand for eating and working. An elephants tusk can weigh up to 22 pounds each. Check out this video as a good example. We need your help to give rangers the strength and safety they need, and to tackle poaching and demand for products like ivory. We publish inspiring and thought-provoking stories and photo galleries about African wildlife and safaris for our sophisticated international community. As long as they feel secure and they have plenty of food it is something that will regularly occur. Want to know more about elephants? The folds and wrinkles in their skin can retain up to 10 times more water than flat skin does, which helps to cool them down. Around 90% of African elephants have been wiped out in the past century - largely due to the ivory trade - leaving an estimated 415,000 wild elephants alive today. African elephants will avoid eating a type of acacia tree because many ants live in these trees and they don’t want to get ants in their sensitive trunks. Elephants are the only mammal incapable of jumping or leaving the ground. Tusks are used to help with feeding - prising bark off trees or digging up roots - or as a defense when fighting. Read our top 10 elephant facts, and find more about our work with elephants in East Africa and across Asia. Elephants are the world's largest land mammal with males on average measuring up to 3m high and weighing up to 6 tonnes. Elephant-World © 2019. And it’s not just the adults – even calves are huge! Female and male African elephants have tusks, but only the male Asian elephants have tusks. Male elephants usually leave the matriarch group when they are 12 to 15, but not all male elephants are loners. African elephants have darker, wrinkled skin. This helps keep moisture trapped underneath the skin, allowing the body to stay cool. General EnquiriesAdvertisingEditorsTravel with usCEO. Check out some videos of cute baby elephants. 10. Elephants can lift up to 770 pounds with their trunk. Asian elephants are also under threat, having declined by at least 50% in the last three generations. Search for your ideal safari here, or contact an Africa Geographic safari consultant to plan your dream vacation. The tusks of an elephant can weigh up to 200 pounds and can grow up to 10 feet in length. In the wild, individuals may consume 600 pounds (272 kilograms) in a day; the average is 300 pounds (130 kilograms). But these beautiful tusks often cause elephants danger. Baby elephants usually weigh around 48 pounds. 4. There are many great facts about the elephant though that you should learn about, and this is the place to do so. Elephants do not have the best eyesight, but they have an amazing sense of smell. An elephant’s trunk is sensitive enough to pick up a blade of grass but strong enough to rip branches off a tree. But we couldn’t do all this without your support. Elephants brains have more complex folds that other animals, which makes them one of the most intelligent animals on the planet. They can consume from 300 to 600 pounds of food every single day. An elephant uses its trunk to grab objects such as food. A herd of elephants often walk in single file. Elephants use their trunks to suck up water to drink – it can contain up to 8 litres of water. Thank you! Asian elephants have five toenails on the front feet and four on the back, while African elephants have four on the front and three on the back feet. Asian elephants are slightly smaller, around 9 feet tall and weighing 6,000 to 13,000 pounds. Elephants can only give birth once every 5 years. Elephants also have tusks. Asian elephants are usually found in Southeast and South Asia. A matriarch of a herd will usually teach young ones how to behave with other elephants. Elephants have “fingers” on the end of their trunks. The trunk of an elephant has more than 150,000 muscles and tendons in it. At birth elephants can weigh 120kg - that’s almost 19 stone. All Rights Reserved. The females spend their entire lives in tight family … If you have any other cool or interesting elephant facts, please leave them in the comments below! Elephants can hold up to 4 gallons of water in their trunks at one time. Elephants have been known to induce their own labor by self-medicating with plants. Baby elephants, or calves, sometimes suck their trunks just like human babies suck their thumbs. It had a shoulder height of 3.96 metres! 1991. Check out our ten elephant-astic elephant facts! Elephants have a developed hippocampus, which is the region in the brain that controls emotions and spatial awareness. African elephants are usually around 10 feet tall, weighing 8,000 to 16,000 pounds. The ears of African elephants are much larger than their cousins and are described as being shaped like the African continent, whereas the ears of Asian elephants are shaped like the Indian subcontinent. Some points of differencePhoenix, AZ Phoenix, AZ With Elephant in need of some attention and some pressing family business at home, our 2014 travels ground to a premature end in the south western Arizona capital of Phoenix. Elephant is an intelligent animal and has good learning capacity. It looks dark grey and ugly also. To protect their babies, adult elephants will cover baby elephants in sand as they sleep to protect them from the sun. After logging in you can close it and return to this page. They also use their trunks as a snorkel when swimming. We also support local people to live alongside elephants by protecting their fields from crop-raiding animals using solar powered electric fences and by installing beehives (elephants hate bees). Though the rest of an elephant's hide is strong and thick, its trunk is very soft and sensitive. It takes a female 22 months from conception to have a. It is usually seen in the forest of Burma, Cambodia, India, Africa and … The average life span for an elephant in the wild is from 50 to 70 years. The elephant’s trunk is a fusion of its nose and upper lip. Elephants are known for their large ears, tusks made of ivory and their trunks – which are actually a fusion of their nose and upper lip. Elephant facts. The login page will open in a new tab. The heaviest elephant in the world weighed 26,000 pounds. The baby can stand up shortly after being born. There is a structured social order in the elephant’s lifestyle. Est. Elephants are considered the strongest mammal on the planet. When bathing, the elephant sucks water to spray on its body. The average lifespan of an elephant is from 50 to 70 years. Elephants are able to hear sound waves way below the human hearing range, as they can hear sounds as low as 9 Hz. A few weeks too early / late and a few kilometres off course and you could miss the greatest show on Earth. The trunk is also used for drinking – the elephant can suck up to 14 litres of water at a time and then blow it straight into its mouth! Elephants dig waterholes and create footpaths for themselves. Having baby elephant twins is highly uncommon. Baby elephants can’t use their trunk right away, because they have no muscle tone. At 11 pounds, the elephant has a brain that is larger than any other animal in the world. And wouldn’t that be a pity? A trained elephant can perform various tasks such as delightful activities in the circus, etc. 3. Read on to find out why elephants are under threat. They are hairy and usually are between … As their habitat changes, fragments and is lost to human settlements and agriculture, populations of Asian elephants are finding it harder to follow their traditional migration routes to reach water, feeding and breeding grounds, and they’re coming into often dangerous contact with people. It is only a myth that elephants are afraid of mice. Elephants are able to identify themselves in a mirror. There is a structured social order in the elephant’s lifestyle. Elephants are actually very terrified of bees. When an elephant loses their last set of molars, they will eventually die because they cannot eat. Elephants eyelashes are pretty long. It is the elephant’s most important limb. An elephants dominant tusk is called the master tusk. Celebrate Africa and do good. They have blood vessels close to the skin surface, that carry air, cooled when the elephant flaps its ears, to the main bloodstream. Male elephants usually take no responsibility in raising their young ones. They have very sophisticated social structures and methods of communication. An elephant in a zoo in Korea has learned to mimic commands zoo keepers gave it, and it has learned eight words and their context. Some elephants can swim for six hours without rest. Elephant tusks are actually enlarged incisor teeth which first appear when elephants are around 2 years old. Teeth. Like all mammals the babies feed off their mother's milk. A few weeks too early / late or a few kilometers off course and you could miss the greatest show on Earth. Reproduction can take place any time of the year for elephants. A newborn elephant can stand up shortly after being born. Bespoke safaris and stories. Elephants skin is highly sensitive and over an inch thick, loaded with nerve endings. Elephants can recognize other elephant carcasses. For up to 16 hours a day elephants can be found feeding on a variety of plant life. They have blood vessels close to the skin surface, that carry air, cooled when the elephant flaps its ears, to the main bloodstream. We’re determined to stop the illegal wildlife trade by supporting community scouts, rangers, sniffer dogs and wildlife trade monitoring networks, to deter poachers and stamp out demand from would-be buyers. African elephants are found in sub-Saharan Africa. The trunk of the elephant is like the hand of man. In fact, they can measure up to five inches in length. The word elephant comes from the Greek word “elephas” which means “ivory”. It can be trained very easily according to the use in circus, zoo, transport, carry loads, etc. Tusks are used to dig for salt, water and roots, to debark trees, to clear a path and occasionally in fights. Males only reach their full size at 35-40 years - that’s well over half their lifespan as wild elephants can live for up to 60-70 years. They're made from ivory; a much desired object. The females spend their entire lives in tight family groups made up of mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters and daughters. Here are 10 facts everyone should know about elephants. An elephant’s tusks continues to grow throughout their life. Elephants are herbivores. They keep their skin clean and protect themselves from sunburn by taking regular dust and mud baths. There are three distinct species of elephant left in the world: The Asian elephant and, in Africa, the forest and savannah elephant species. Elephants have saggy or loosely fit skin. Elephants drink up to 160 liters of water a day. The elephant's temporal lobe (the area of the brain associated with memory) is larger and denser than that of people - hence the saying 'elephants never forget'.