Elephant Facts

Height
Some male elephants have grown to 13 feet tall.

Weight
They weigh between 10 and 14 thousand pounds.

Food
Elephants eat grass, small branches, and bark from trees. They especially like leaves from the top branches. They get the leaves by pushing down the trees with their large heads and bodies. Then they get the bark by scraping it with their sharp tusks.

Life Span
An elephant's lifetime is between 60-70 years.

Reproduction
Female elephants produce one calf every five years.

Colors
Elephants are mostly gray to brown in color, and yes there is such a thing as pink elephants. In regions of India where the soil is red, elephants take on a permanent pink tinge because they regularly spray dust over their bodies to protect themselves against insects.

Habitat
Most elephants live in the grasslands of Africa and in the forests of Asia.

Interesting Facts
Elephants are capable of pulling up to 11.5 liters (3 gallons) of water into the trunk to be sprayed into the mouth for drinking or onto the back for bathing. They also use two fingerlike projections that are at the tip of their trunk to manipulate small objects and to pluck grasses.

When elephants travel, they walk very quietly in single file. Young elephants are led by the older elephants with their tails.

They excrete up to 80 pounds in one day.

They can run up to 24 mph for short distances.

Elephants sleep standing up, and have been known to remain standing after they die.

Genuine ivory does not only come from elephants. It can come from the tusk of a boar or walrus.

Tusks continue to grow throughout an elephant's life. Tusks are strong and are used for procuring food, but elephants occasionally snap off a tusk when digging up roots or gouging fibers out of a tree trunk. They can weigh up to 200 pounds.

During World War II, the very first bomb dropped on Berlin by the Allies killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

When elephants charge, they fan out their ears and either roll up their trunk or hold it to the side to get it out of the way.

Elephants perform greeting ceremonies when a member of the group returns after a long time away. The welcoming animals spin around, flap their ears, and trumpet.

Sub Species
The African savanna elephant and the Asian elephant are the only two surviving species of what was, in prehistoric times, a diverse and populous group of large mammals. Now through DNA testing, it has been discovered that there is a third elephant species -- the African forest elephant.