Elephants

Elephants are the largest land animal. They weigh up to 12,000 pounds and can be 12 feet tall!
Elephants live for a long time, up to 70 years.
There are two main kinds of elephants: African and Asian. Asian elephants have more hair. African elephants are bigger and they have bigger ears and tusks.
Baby elephants are called calves. They weigh about 250 pounds and are two and a half feet tall when they are born.
The other elephants in the group help the mother elephant take care of her baby.
Female elephants travel in groups called herds. A herd is made up of females. Male elephants tend to live alone.
Elephants are good swimmers, but they cannot jump or run very fast.
Elephants take mud baths and cover themselves with wet mud to protect their skin from the sun and biting bugs.
Elephants have huge ears. They flap their big ears on hot days, making a breeze that helps them cool off.
Elephant tusks are made out of ivory. They use their tusks for many things, like digging for food. The tusks of African elephants can be over ten feet long and weigh over two hundred pounds.
Elephants are herbivores, which means they eat plants. They spend 16 hours a day eating food. An adult elephant can eat from 300 to 600 pounds of food in one day! But their body uses less than half of what they eat. What do you think happens to the rest?
Elephants have long trunks. They use their trunks to squirt water into their mouth and to pick up food. They can also give themselves a shower with water they suck up into their trunk.
An elephant can use its trunk to smell. It sniffs the air to find food and to find other elephants.
An elephant’s trunk can also tell you if they are happy or ready to fight!
Getting to see elephants in the zoo is a lot of fun, but maybe someday you could get to see elephants in the wild!
