Samuel Okoruwa
Elephants are the largest land animals on earth. They are known to be gentle creatures but can be violent when provoked. Here are 11 facts about these amazing creatures that you probably didn’t know.
1. There are two species of elephant: the African bush elephant, also known as the African Savannah elephant (Loxodonta africana), and the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus).
2. Elephants are not only the world’s largest animals, but asides from great apes (humans, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans), they are the most intelligent.
3. Male elephants are most dangerous when their testosterone levels are as high as 60 or more. This changes cause them to be more aggressive and make them more prepared for competing for females. This condition called a “musth”, pronounced “must, can last for up to 60 days and is more pronounced in Asian elephants. A bull elephant experiencing musth can pose a great danger to anything that gets in its way.
4. Elephants are hairy creatures but the hairs are small and sparse so they don’t look furry. They are warm-blooded animals and they nurse their young with milk produced by mammary glands. This means they have all the features to be qualified as mammals.
5. Elephants are vegetarians who eat a wide range of plant material. They feed on more than 100 species of plants and love to eat crops such as millet.
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6. African elephants are the largest elephants and the largest land animals in the world.
7. With a population of just 2,400 to 2,800 individuals left in the wild, Sumatran elephants are the most critically endangered of the Asian species. There has been an 80% decline in their population over the last three generations.
8. Elephants have the largest brains in the animal kingdom! Their brains are 3 or 4 times the size of the human brain, although their brains are smaller in proportion when compared to their body weight.
9. They are the only animals that cannot jump! Perhaps, this is due to the facts that bull elephants (males) can grow up to 13 feet tall at the shoulders, weigh up to 14,000 pounds and measure up to 30 feet from trunk to tail. They are really enormous!
10. Although elephants are incapable of jumping, they can run at a maximum speed of 25 miles (40 km) per hour. Nevertheless, when they are running, they still keep at least one foot on the ground at all times.
11. Asides from the trumpet-like sound elephants make with their trunks, they can also purr like cats.
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