The African Elephant

The African elephant is the largest land mammal in the world. Imagine six, full-size pick-up trucks stacked on top of each other. That’s how much the largest African elephant weighed.

There are other species of elephants, namely the Asian and the  Indian, but they are much smaller than the African. The African elephant is the king among the giants on land. No other land animal comes close to the size of these creatures. It would take 165 full-grown men to make up the same weight as the world’s record African elephant.

Elephants have four molars; each weighs about 5 kg (11 lb) and measures about 30 cm (12 in) long. As the front pair wear down and drop out in pieces, the back pair shift forward and two new molars emerge in the back of the mouth. Elephants replace their teeth six times. At about 40 to 60 years of age the elephant no longer has teeth and will likely die of starvation, a common cause of death.

Their tusks are teeth; the second set of incisors become the tusks. They are used for digging for roots and stripping the bark off trees for food, for fighting each other during mating season, and for defending themselves against predators. The tusks weigh from 23–45 kg (51–99 lb) and can be from 1.5–2.4 m (5–8 ft) long. Unlike Asian elephants, both male and female African elephants have tusks.

· In one year an elephant can drink 15,000 gal/57,000 liters of water

· Male elephants usually weigh about 16,500 lbs/7,425 kgs and are about 20 ft/6.1m long

· Elephants have only FOUR teeth, which they can lose and replace up to six times

· Elephants are herbivores, meaning they eat only plants and vegetation

· African elephants can live as long as 70 years

· Female gestation (length of pregnancy) in elephants is 22 months – almost 2 years!

· Both male and female elephants have ivory tusks, which they use to dig for water, strip bark off trees, and the males used to ’spar’ with each other.