25 Cool And Absolutely Extraordinary Elephant Facts

Posted by , Updated on March 24, 2024

Elephants, the planet’s biggest terrestrial creatures, can be found dispersed across sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia. Recognized primarily as the African elephant and the Asian elephant, these impressive giants are generally viewed as wonderfully intriguing beings. Sadly, ongoing habitat destruction and poaching have greatly reduced the global elephant population. As per the International Union for Conservation of Nature, African elephants have been identified as vulnerable, and Asian elephants as endangered. To increase public consciousness about these intelligent, stunning, and peaceful mammals, a compilation of 25 Marvelous And Unbelievably Exceptional Elephant Facts has been put together.

25

Elephants love water. They like to dive into the water, swim, and find great fun in fighting the waves. The water's buoyancy also gives their joints a break.

elephantswww.bbc.co.uk
24

Female elephants can have babies until they are about 50 years old. They tend to have a new baby every 2 to 4 years. They usually have one baby and twins are very rare.

elephant motherwww.pinterest.com
23

Stories of African elephants getting drunk from the fermented Marula fruit are not true. They don’t eat the fruit off the ground where it ferments, and even if they did, it would take about 1,400 pieces to get one elephant drunk.

marula snackwww.dailymail.co.uk
22

Poachers kill elephants primarily for their tusks. Despite being illegal, the increasing demand for ivory from China and its high value motivate poachers to continue their crimes.

elephant deadSource: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/09/what-is-it-about-an-elephants-tusks-that-make-them-so-valuable/262021/
21

Although their trunk is huge, weighing about 400 pounds, its rather dexterous and can pick up tiny things, including a single grain of rice.

elephant trunkwww.omgfacts.com
20

An elephant’s skin is so sensitive that they can feel a fly landing on it.

african elephantschrishill.photoshelter.com
19

Despite their heavy weight, newborn elephants can stand up shortly after they're born.

babycakecorrespondence.blogspot.com
18

Since ancient times, elephants have been used as working animals for various tasks, including taking them into war. Historically, bulls are difficult and dangerous to work with and have often been chained and sometimes abused.

hannibaldeadliestfiction.wikia.com
17

The attribute of elephants for having excellent memory may have basis in fact. They possibly have cognitive maps allowing them to remember large-scale spaces over long periods of time.

elephant drawingwww.africanskimmer.com
16

The average life span for an elephant in the wild is about 50 to 70 years. The oldest elephant ever was Lin Wang, an Asian elephant, who died on February 2003 at the age of 86.

old elephantnews.blogs.cnn.com
15

Elephants produce several types of sounds. Perhaps the most well known is the trumpet which is made during excitement, distress, or aggression. They can hear one another's trumpeting up to 6 miles.

elephant trumpetwww.johnlund.com
14

Touching is an important form of communication among elephants. Individuals greet each other by stroking or wrapping their trunks. Older elephants also use trunk-slaps, kicks, and shoves to discipline younger ones.

asian elephantwww.cutestpaw.com
13

Elephants are capable of human-like emotions, like feeling loss, grieving, and even crying. They remember and mourn their loved ones many years after their death. When the "Elephant Whisperer" Lawrence Anthony died, a herd of elephants arrived at his house to mourn him.

elephant herdimgur.com
12

The closest living relatives to elephants are small, thickset, herbivorous mammals often mistaken for rodents called hyraxes.

hyraxen.wikipedia.org
11

Elephants are not scared of mice as some myths suggest. However, they are scared of ants and bees. Consequently, farmers in some African countries protect their fields from elephants by lining the borders with beehives.

mousewww.newscientist.com
10

Elephants can move forward and backward, but cannot trot, jump, or gallop. They are so heavy that they cannot lift all four legs off the ground at the same time.

elephant ridingmanojcsindagi.in
9

Much like humans are typically left or right-handed, elephants are also left or right-tusked. For instance, if an elephant is a "lefty," it will favor the use of that tusk for things like fighting, picking things up, or stripping trees. The favored tusk even gets shorter over time due to this constant usage.

elephant tuskhttps://greenglobaltravel.com/facts-about-elephants-world-elephant-day/
8

Elephants can detect seismic signals with sensory cells in their feet. They can also “hear” these deep-pitched sounds when ground vibrations travel from the animal’s front feet, up its leg and shoulder bones, and into its middle ear.

elephant earswww.flickr.com
7

Elephants use mud as a sunscreen, protecting their skin from ultraviolet light. Although tough, their skin is very sensitive. Without the regular mud baths to protect it from burning, insect bites, and moisture loss, their skin suffers serious damage.

baby elephantwww.jbaynews.com
6

Elephants are avid eaters. They can feed for up to 16 hours daily and consume up to 600 pounds of food.

elephant eatingelephantfacts.net
5

Like human toddlers, great apes, magpies, and dolphins, elephants have passed the mirror test — they recognize themselves in a mirror.

elephant mirrorwww.flickr.com
4

Unlike most mammals, which grow baby teeth and then replace them with a single permanent set of adult teeth, elephants are polyphyodonts that have cycles of tooth rotation throughout their lives.

elephant teethwww.today.com
3

The trunk of an elephant has more than 40,000 muscles in it.

elephant trunk 2www.africaboundadventures.com
2

The largest elephant on record weighed 26,000 pounds (11793.402 kg) and was 13 feet high (3.9624 m).

elephants muddywww.elephantplains.co.za
1

Female elephants undergo the longest gestation period of all mammals - they are pregnant for 22 months.

elephant bathelephantlovers.blogspot.com

If you enjoyed these awesome elephant facts, then you’ll get a kick out of these 25 Cool And Absolutely Extraordinary Dolphin Facts.



Photo: Featured Image - Pixabay.com (Public Domain), 1. Pixabay.com (Public Domain), 2. John Hickey-Fry, Elephants at Satao Camp, Tsavo East 2012 small, CC BY 2.0 , 3. MaxPixel.net (Public Domain), 4. Challiyan at Malayalam Wikipedia, Fossil elephant teeth, CC BY-SA 2.5 , 5. WikipediaCommons.com (Public Domain), 6. Pixabay.com (Public Domain), 7. Profberger, Baby elephant mud bathing chobe, CC BY-SA 3.0 , 8. Mister-E, Angry elephant ears, CC BY 2.0 , 9. pixabay (Public Domain), 10. Pixabay.com (Public Domain), 11. Maxpixel.net (Public Domain), 12. D. Gordon E. Robertson, Yellow-spotted Rock Hyrax, CC BY-SA 3.0 , 13. MaxPixel.net (Public Domain), 14. SuperJew, Asian Elephant and Baby, CC BY-SA 3.0 , 15. Pexels.com (Public Domain), 16. Pixabay.com (Public Domain), 17. Deror Avi, Elephant show in Chiang Mai P1110469, CC BY-SA 3.0 , 18. WikipediaCommons.com (Public Domain), 19. Pixabay.com (Public Domain), 20. Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE, African Elephant (Loxodonta africana) male (17289351322), CC BY-SA 2.0 , 21. jenny downing from Geneva, Switzerland, Elephant trunk (1), CC BY 2.0 , 22. Ina96, Elephant0567, CC BY-SA 3.0 , 23. Chris Eason from London, Marula snack (394320118), CC BY 2.0 , 24. Pixabay.com (Public Domain), 25. Pixabay.com (Public Domain)