SOS Elephants - Fun Facts

•	Life Span - elephants can live for up to 70 years
•	The Africa Elephant is the largest of all land mammals
•	Elephants normally walk about 4 mph
•	Elephants are able to swim for long distances
•	Elephants spend about 16 hours a day eating
•	They consume as much as 300-495 pounds of food per day
•	They live in tight social units led by an older matriarch
•	Males leave the herd between the ages of 12 and 15
•	Their tusks are of ivory and are actually enormously enlarged incisors
•	The elephant's eyes are small and its eyesight is poor
•	They have the largest brains in the animal kingdom
•	The elephant's foot is a spongy pad with four or five toes and toenails. The pad acts like a cushion with each step, absorbing the impact and taking some strain off the leg.
•	One ear from a bull African elephant weighs more than 100 pounds
•	Elephants do not have sweat glands.
•	Elephants have 6 sets of molar teeth; when the last set is lost, the animal is unable to eat and eventually dies.
•	Elephants can give birth every three to four years. Gestation period is almost two years. Babies are roughly 250 pounds when born
•	An elephant's trunk is actually a long nose used for smelling, breathing, trumpeting, drinking, and also for grabbing things-especially a potential meal. The trunk alone contains about 100,000 different muscles. African elephants have two fingerlike features on the end of their trunk that they can use to grab small items.
•	Height at the shoulder, 8.2 to 13 ft (2.5 to 4 m)
•	Weight: 5,000 to 14,000 lbs (2,268 to 6,350 kg)