Elephant Facts & Trivia
Elephant Facts
- Elephants have a lifespan of 60 to 70 years.
- The African Elephant is the largest living land mammal.
- Their trunks permit them to reach heights of up to 23 feet.
- Elephant’s tusks are elongated incisors.
- The African Elephant’s ears are twice as large as the Asian Elephant’s.
- There are two types of elephant, the Asian elephant and the African elephant.
- Elephants are the largest land-living mammal in the world.
- Female elephants spend their entire lives living in large groups called herds.
- Male elephant leave their herds at about 13 years old and live fairly solitary lives from this point.
- Elephants are herbivores.
- Elephants can hear one another’s trumpeting calls up to 5 miles.
- The largest elephant on record weighed about 24,000 pounds (10,886 kg) with a height of 13 feet.
- The elephant’s trunk is able to sense the size, shape, and temperature of an object.
- Male elephants are called bulls and females are called cows.
- An elephant’s trunk is used for smelling, breathing, trumpeting, drinking and grabbing.
- Life span in the wild is about 70 years.
- Elephant protection status is “threatened.”
- Tusks are used to dig for food and water, as well as to strip bark from trees.
- Largest elephant on record weighed about 24,000 pounds.
- To protect from sunburning and elephant will use sand.
- About 100 elephants a day are killed for their ivory.
- The best sense of smell in the animal kingdom is from the elephant.
- Elephants will humor, compassion, cooperation, self-awareness, tool use, playfulness show emotion and mourn.
- The elephant has the largest brain of any land animal.
- An elephant pregnancy can go for 22 months.
- Kenya does a poor job of prosecuting poachers.
- Elephants sleep standing up.
- An elephant trunk is thought to have 100,000 muscles.
- Up to 15,000 elephants are thought to living in captivity.
- Fifteen countries have banned wild animals in circuses, not the USA, however.
- A new born elephant weighs about 200 pounds.
- Elephant skin can be up to one inch thick.
- Elephant ears radiate heat to help keep themselves warm.
- Elephants will eat roots, grasses, fruit and bark, but not peanuts.
- An elephant will sleep 2-3 hours a day.
- Elephants have no natural predators.
- 20,000 African elephants were killed in 2013.
- Elephants have died in research, including at the hand of Thomas Edison.
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Phylum: Chordata
- Class: Mammalia
- Order: Proboscidea
- Family: Elephantidae
Elephant Movies
- An Apology to Elephants, (2013)
- The Eyes of Thailand, (2012)
- Water for Elephants, (2011)
- Elephant White, (2011)
- One Lucky Elephant, (2010)
- Horton Hears a Who!, (2008)
- Elephant Tales, (2006)
- Elephant, (2003)
- The Impossible Elephant, (2001)
- Babar: King of the Elephants, (1999)
- Larger then Life, (1996)
- Operation Dumbo Drop, (1995)
- An Elephant Called Slowly, (1969)
- Jumbo, (2008)
- Babar, (1960)
- Dumbo, (1941)
- Elmer Elephant, (1936)
Elephant Songs
- Baby Elephant Walk, by Henry Mancini
- Elephant Song, by The Strokes
- The Elephant Song, by Nicolas Billon
Famous Elephants
- Dumbo, from the movie “Dumbo”
- Ella, from “Ella the Elephant”
- Elmer, from the story book “Elmer the Patchwork Elephant”
- Jumbo, The Elephant Who Became an Adjective
- Colonel Hathi, from the movie “The Jungle Book”
- Babar, from the movie “Babar”
- Horton, from the movie “Horton Hears a Who!”
- Kala Nag, from “The Jungle Book”
- Manny, from the movie “Ice Age”
- Rosie, from the movie “Water for Elephants”
- Shep, from the comic “George of the Jungle”
- Snorky, from the TV Show “The Banana Splits Club”
- Stampy, from the cartoon series “The Simpsons”
- Tantor, from the series “Tarzan”