AFRICAN ELEPHANT
Did You Know?
Elephants will eat up to 500 pounds of vegetation a day and drink up to 40 gallons of water at a time.
An elephant can walk faster than a man, maintaining a steady speed of 5-5 1/2 miles per hour. A herd on the march can easily cover a distance of 50 miles a day.
When water is scarce during the dry season, elephants will dig for water in the sandy bed of a river that has stopped flowing.
The largest tusk ever recorded was 10 feet long and wiefged nearly 230 pounds.
Habits
Elephants are social animals with strong family ties. They are so social that they even bury their dead with twigs and leaves. They also grieve over this by staying by the "grave" for many hours.
Herds may wander great distances, but they never move far from water. Elephants like baths every evening, so they stay close to any available pool or stream. They'll make do with a shower - squirted from the trunk - if water is scarce. After bathing they coat their skin in dirt for protection from insects.
Breeding
Elephants mate when they are 14 or 15 years old. A single calf, standing 33 inches high and weighing around 250 pounds. A calf is suckled for at least 2 years and remains in the family unit after the birth of its mother's next calf. A cow usually gives birth about 4 years and will often have 2 or 3 calves with her at the same time.
Distribution
In most parts of Africa, south of the Sahara.
Conservation
The African elephant is now endangered. Hunting is banned but poaching for ivory is still widespread. In Kenya akine, numbers have reduced from 150,00 to 30,000 in the last 10 years. Gamekeepers are almost powerless against the sophisticated machine guns used by poachers.
Animals