7 Fun Facts about Elephants!
Elephants are Keystone Species 🐘
Do you know how important elephants are to their environment? They are a keystone species! A keystone species is a species (a group of animals) that has a disproportionally large impact on its environment. Elephants are important for several reasons:
Elephants are ecosystem engineers. They uproot trees and create clearings, which helps promote plant growth that other herbivores also rely on.
Elephants increase water access. They dig water holes to provide water - not only for themselves, but for other animals as well during the dry seasons.
Elephants play an important role in seed dispersal. They consume a variety of plants and fruits, and their dung helps disperse seeds over the large areas they migrate over, which promotes plant growth and diversity.
Many of the other surrounding plants and animals are dependent on elephants, which is what makes elephants so important to their environment and to us!
7 Fun Facts about Elephants 🐘
Even though we know that elephants are important and that they’re very large (they’re the largest land animals, by far!), here’s some fun facts that will help truly put them into perspective:
African elephants can weigh up to 23,000 pounds! That’s equal to about 8 Honda Civics! To get an idea of just how large elephants are, the next largest animals are: Asian elephants (11,900 pounds), the White Rhinoceros (6,000 pounds), Hippopotamuses (7,000 pounds), and Giraffes (4,250 pounds).
African elephants can stand up to 13 feet tall! Although they’re shorter than Giraffes (at 19 feet tall), which are the tallest land animal, elephants still come in second!
As you might imagine based on how large they are, elephants need to eat a lot! African elephants can eat up to 600 pounds of plants and vegetation each day!
Their trunk contains more than 40,000 muscles! For comparison, the entire human body only has 600 muscles! With its trunk, the elephant can both wield enormous power and pick up something as small as a single blade of grass. Another cool fact is that an elephant can hold up to 2 gallons of water in its trunk!
The African elephant has the longest pregnancy of any animal, lasting 22 months! The next longest pregnancy for land animals is the Black Rhinoceros, which lasts 16 months (Sperm whales are second overall, at around 18 months).
Elephant tusks are actually their incisor teeth! These teeth continue to grow their entire lives. Elephants use their tusks for digging, fighting, stripping tree bark, and lifting heavy loads - they are important tools and weapons!
And finally - elephants can use their feet to “hear”! They have specialized sensors in their feet called Pacinian corpuscles, which help elephants detect the smallest vibrations in the ground. They can use this to detect potential threats, as well as to communicate with other elephants over extremely long distances (more than 15 miles!) through low-frequency rumbles.
Aren't elephants amazing? Which fact was your favorite? 🐘