Elephant Facts
• Seventy years is the average lifespan of the elephant - facts about them are numerous.
• Elephants drink by using their trunks to pour water into their mouths.
• An elephant’s heartbeat is very low at 28-30 beats a minute.
• Elephants show many emotions including grieving over another’s death.
• There are two types of living elephants--Asian and African.
• An elephant’s trunk is very heavy--they often rest them on a tusk.
• African elephants have four toes on the front feet and three on the back feet.
• Asian elephants have five toes on the front feet and four on the back.
• An Asian male elephant weights around 6 tons and is ten feet tall.
• Elephants are the largest of all animals.
• An elephant trunk is its nose and upper lip.
• The elephant is the only animal who cannot jump.
• An elephant’s trunk has 150,000 muscles.
• Here are some disturbing elephant facts: in the ten years between 1979 and 1989 the population of elephants decreased from 1,300,000 to 750,000 due to ivory hunters.
• African elephants live in families of six to twelve members each.
• Elephants are vegetarians.
• Elephants produce one baby with each pregnancy.
• Elephants, like humans, go through puberty at 13-14 years old.
• Elephants are very playful.
• There were originally 350 species of elephants and now 348 are extinct.
• Elephant families are matriarchal, ruled by the oldest female.
• Each elephant’s ear is unique and identifies them in the same way fingerprints identify a human being.
• Elephants are so large and heavy they make footprints that fill with rainwater for other animals to drink from.
• Elephant facts reveal that female elephants can give birth until the age of fifty.
• An elephant’s tusks are his teeth.
• Elephants have 20 ribs.
• Elephants can scratch their eyes or ears with their trunk.
• An elephant’s tail is approximately 40 feet young.
• Elephants have a better sense of smell than any other animal.
• The gestation period for an elephant is 22 months--the longest for any animal.
• Elephant births are 2-½ to 4 years a part.
• Asian elephants grow to be 21 feet long.
• African elephants grow to be 25 feet long.
• Asian elephants have been used as beasts of burden throughout their history.
• Asian elephants live in the following countries: Indonesia, India, Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Malaysia, southern China, and Bangladesh.
• Elephants at the National Zoo daily eat 125 lbs of hay, 10 lbs of fruit and vegetables, 10 lbs of herbivore pellets, and a number of leafy branches.
• Even though there is a worldwide ban on ivory, elephants are still killed for their tusks.
• African elephants in the wild eat 600 pounds of food per day.
• Elephants drink up to 80 gallons of water a day.