Here are the 38 most interesting and fun facts about elephants. 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 weighs 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 that 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.
On average, elephants drink up to 80 gallons of water a day.
