Most of us are well aware of elephants and have even seen at least one of them in person at a zoo or circus. In some of these locations you can even ride them due to their calm and gentle nature.
There are many great facts about the elephant that you may not know before
1. Elephants are the largest of all land animals in the world.
2. It takes a female 22 months from conception to have a baby. This is longer than any other animal in the world.
3. A newborn elephant can stand up shortly after being born. They can weigh up to 260 pounds.
4. The average life span for an elephant in the wild is from 50 to 70 years. They oldest known elephant in the world lived to be 82 years of age.
5. The heaviest elephant in the world weighed 26,000 pounds.
6. The word elephant means ivory.
7. It is only a myth that elephants are afraid of mice. This legend states that the mice can run up the trunk and suffocate them but there is no truth to this at all.
8. The trunk of an elephant has more than 40,000 muscles in it.
9. Elephants are herbivores, this means that they are plant eaters.
10. Elephants consume large amounts of water – up to 15 quarts of it at once.
11. Elephants love to swim.
12. Elephants have an excellent sense of smell and hearing but poor eyesight.
13. Generally one tusk will be shorter than the other. This is because the elephant will use it more often for things. Just like people are either right or left handed it is believed that these animals rely upon a dominant tusk.
14. The tusks of an elephant can weigh up to 200 pounds and can grow up to 10 feet in length.
15. The elephant is one of the few four legged animals that can’t run.
16. At 11 pounds, the elephant has a brain that is larger than any other animal in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment