Elephant (Loxodonta africana)
Moremi Game Reserve
Okavango Delta
Botswana
Southern Africa
1) Males can grow up to 13 feet tall at the shoulders, measure up to 30 feet from trunk to tail, and weigh up to 14,000 pounds. Elephants are the ONLY mammals that cannot jump!
2) An elephant’s trunk weighs around 400 pounds and contains around 100,000 different muscles. But, thanks to finger-like appendages at the tip, they’re also nimble enough to pluck a single blade of grass.
3) Elephants tusks are ambidextrous. Some are “lefties,” others are “righties.” They’ll favor that tusk when fighting other Elephants, picking things up, or stripping leaves and bark off trees. Because of constant usage, their preferred tusk gets shorter over time.
4) Elephants have highly developed brains, not to mention the largest in the entire animal kingdom. Their brain is 3 or 4 times larger than that of humans.
5) Elephants have an extremely slow pulse rate, around 27 beats per minute. Compare that to the average human (80 bpm), or Canary (1000 bpm).
6) The elephant’s trunk, which is called a proboscis, contains 16 muscles, with a large muscle on the top and sides of the trunk allowing elephants to raise it. There are also thousands of smaller muscle fascicles, or bundles of muscle fibers, that allow for finer movements of the trunk.
7) These massive mammals can run at a maximum speed of 25 miles (40 km) per hour.
Elephant (Loxodonta africana)
Moremi Game Reserve
Okavango Delta
Botswana
Southern Africa
1) Males can grow up to 13 feet tall at the shoulders, measure up to 30 feet from trunk to tail, and weigh up to 14,000 pounds. Elephants are the ONLY mammals that cannot jump!
2) An elephant’s trunk weighs around 400 pounds and contains around 100,000 different muscles. But, thanks to finger-like appendages at the tip, they’re also nimble enough to pluck a single blade of grass.
3) Elephants tusks are ambidextrous. Some are “lefties,” others are “righties.” They’ll favor that tusk when fighting other Elephants, picking things up, or stripping leaves and bark off trees. Because of constant usage, their preferred tusk gets shorter over time.
4) Elephants have highly developed brains, not to mention the largest in the entire animal kingdom. Their brain is 3 or 4 times larger than that of humans.
5) Elephants have an extremely slow pulse rate, around 27 beats per minute. Compare that to the average human (80 bpm), or Canary (1000 bpm).
6) The elephant’s trunk, which is called a proboscis, contains 16 muscles, with a large muscle on the top and sides of the trunk allowing elephants to raise it. There are also thousands of smaller muscle fascicles, or bundles of muscle fibers, that allow for finer movements of the trunk.
7) These massive mammals can run at a maximum speed of 25 miles (40 km) per hour.