Interesting facts about elephants

March 12, 2012 | In: Animal facts for kids

Today we’ll talk about elephants. These cute, four legged animals are the biggest herbivorous mammals in the world. There are 2 types of elephants: the African and the Indian elephant. The main difference about them is that the Indian one has much smaller ears. What do you think the African elephant uses to cool during the summer? You guessed it, his ears. The funny thing about the ears of the elephant is that they have very poor hearing. Because of this, all these mammals use their feet to listen, through the vibrations that they feel in the ground.

The elephants have 2 ivory tusks, that measure up to 6ft(2m). These tusks grow throughout their entire lifetime, and they are actually enormously enlarged incisors.

A fully grown elephant reaches the height of 10-13 ft(3-4 m). Adult African elephants weigh up to 16000 pounds(7250 kg). Like people, the elephants prefer one tusk over the other, just like people prefer the right or the left hand.

Did you know that the elephant has one of the thickest skins in the world? It measures up to an inch, an inch and a half(2,5- 4cm). Like the pandas, they spend 15-18 hours a day feeding, and in this time, they usually walk 4 to 5 miles(6-8 km). They’re very slow: 0.5 miles/hour. A fully grown bull(the elephant male) eats somewhere between 500 and 600 pounds(250-300 kg)  of food per day.

Elephants have an average lifespan of 70 years. Despite  their size, elephants are very good swimmers, but because of their small eyes, their eyesight is very poor.

But don’t despair. At least the elephants has the biggest brain in the entire animal kingdom, weighing almost 140 kg at the age of 20.