Elephants

Elephants are large and grey and have big ears and long trunks, right? If all elephants seem the same to you, take a closer look. There are two different kinds of elephants: African and Asian. Here are a few ways to tell them apart.

African elephants Loxodonta africana— Have large ears that are shaped like the continent of Africa, both males and females have visible tusks, their skin is very wrinkly, their backs are swayed, and the end of their trunk works as if they have two fingers there to help them pick things up.

Asian elephants Elephas maximus— Have smaller ears, usually only the males have visible tusks, their skin is not as wrinkly, they only have one "finger" at the ends of their trunks, and their backs are dome-shaped.

At birth, a baby elephant, called a calf, may stand three feet (one meter) tall. A calf is usually quite hairy with a long tail and a very short trunk. It uses its mouth to drink its mother's milk, so it doesn't need a long trunk to feed. Calves are clumsy at first with their trunks, but they learn to use them as they grow older.

Elephants' ears are a little like air conditioner. As elephants flap their wet ears on a hot day, the blood flowing through the many blood vessels there is cooled. This in turn cools their large bodies.

Wild elephants eat all types of vegetation, from grass and fruit to leaves and bark—about 220 to 440 pounds (100 to 200 kilograms) each day.

The largest elephant on record was an adult male African elephant. It weighed about 24,000 pounds (10,886 kilograms) and was 13 feet (3.96 meters) tall at the shoulder! Most elephants don't get that large, but African elephants grow larger than Asian elephants.

Read more about elephants.