Interesting Elephant Facts that are Worth Trumpeting About

These elephant facts are worth trumpeting about (no pun intended) because the largest mammals on earth are truly fascinating creatures.

There are 3 living elephant species in the world: the African Bush Elephant, the African Forest Elephant (these 2 are often collectively referred to as "the African elephant"), and the Asian Elephant.
Genetically speaking, the elephant's closest cousin is the hyrax, a rabbit-sized rodent-like mammal which lives in Africa and parts of Asia
A female elephant is called a cow, a male a bull and a baby a calf
How long do elephants live? Elephants have a lifespan of up to 80 years in the wild.
Elephants live in a variety of habitats such as forests, woodlands, swamps and savannas provided these have plenty of food and water.
Elephants produce a variety of sounds. The deafening trumpet produced with their trunks is used to scare off adversaries. They also rumble, snort, squeak and squeal. While the trumpet can be heard more than 2 km away, other sounds are of such a low frequency that they cannot be heard by the human ear.
Elephants live in groups called herds. Each herd often consists of about a dozen female elephants and their calves.
Elephants are matriarchal which means that a herd is led by a female, typically, the oldest member. She determines when and where to travel to and when and what to eat.
What do elephants eat? Elephants are herbivores so they eat grass, tree leaves, bark, branches and roots. An elephant eats up to 270 kg (600 lb) of vegetation and drinks about 254 liters (67 gallons) of water daily.

Anatomy and other Elephant Facts

An Elephant weighs up to 6,350 kg (14,000 lb). Males are typically bigger and heavier than the females.
An elephant can attain a height of 12 ft at the shoulder. That is more than twice the height of an average man.
An elephant grows 6 sets of teeth in its lifecycle. Older teeth are pushed out by new teeth from the back, not underneath. Once the last set of teeth wears out, an old elephant starves to death.
A single elephant ear can weigh up to 50 kg (110 pounds) and measure 1.2m by 1.5m (4 feet by 5 feet). Other than hearing, elephants use their ears to fan their bodies in order to keep cool.
An elephant's trunk doubles up as a nose and upper lip. It is used to smell, place food in the mouth and suck up water which it then squirts into the mouth or sprays over it skin. It is also used to nudge a newborn calf to its feet so that it can suckle, as a snorkel during swimming and to say hello.
Tusks are used to dig for water, clear pathways and to fight. Elephants are either right or left-tusked in the same way human beings are right- or left-handed.
An elephant's feet contain a gelatinous material that acts as a shock absorber and enables these mammoth creatures to walk silently. Elephants also use their feet to trample on their adversaries.

Both males and females mature at 13 to 15 years of age. A cow reproduces at 2-4 year intervals until it is in its 50s while a bull reproduces until it is about 60.
One of the amazing elephant facts is that gestation lasts 22 long months.
Elephant cows give birth in the full view of virtually all the herd's females, usually to a single calf which weighs about 115 kg (250 pounds).
The newborn is virtually blind and its brain, which is about a third the size of an adult's, is also relatively underdeveloped.
A baby elephant consumes 10-15 liters of milk everyday and is completely dependent on its mother's milk for the first 2 years of its life.

The elephant is called Ndovu or Tembo in Swahili.
The elephant population in Kenya grew from 16,000 in 1989 to an impressive 30,000 in 2007. Kenya is therefore probably the best place in the world to see wild elephants.
The largest elephant sanctuaries in Kenya are the vast Tsavo East and Tsavo West National Parks and Amboseli National Park at the foot of the majestic Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain.
One of the riveting sights in Kenya is that of the salt-mining elephants. At dawn, a herd of elephants uses their tusks to scrape salt off the Kitum caves of Mt Elgon, the second highest of the mountains in Kenya.
Kenya also prides itself as the home of "red elephants." Although most elephants are gray, those in the Tsavo East and Tsavo West National Parks are permanently red as a result of constantly wallowing in the red volcanic dust and mud of the national park.