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How many muscles does an elephant's trunk have? And 6 other elephant facts

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Elephants, found in both Africa and Asia, are vital to maintaining the rich biodiversity of the ecosystems that they share with other species. Here's a snapshot of what you should know about them.

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African Vs Asian Elephants: The 10 Physical Differences✔️

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Unless you know what you're looking for, it can be easy to mistake an African for an Asian elephant. These 10 African vs Asian elephant differences will help

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Why World Elephant Day? Because the world's elephants are in trouble and need your help.

Elephant numbers have dropped by 62% over the last decade, and they could be mostly extinct by the end of the next decade. An estimated 100 African elephants are killed each day by poachers seeking ivory, meat and body parts, leaving only 400,000 remaining. An insatiable lust for ivory products in the Asian market makes the illegal ivory trade extremely profitable, and has led to the slaughter of tens of thousands of African elephants. Between 2010 and 2014, the price of ivory in China tripled, driving illicit poaching through the roof. If the elephants are to survive, the demand for ivory must be stopped. As of 2011, the world is losing more elephants than the population can reproduce, threatening the future of African elephants across the continent. Bull elephants with big tusks are the main targets and their numbers have been diminished to less than half of the females. Female African elephants have tusks and are also killed, which has a terrible effect on the stability of elephant societies, leaving an increasing number of orphaned baby elephants. There arestill more African elephants being killed for ivory than are being born . . . elephant populations continue to decline.

Elephants cannot be manufactured. Once they're gone, they cannot be replaced."
-Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, DPhil, CBE, Founder and CEO of Save the Elephants

The Asian elephant, whose habitat ranges over 13 countries across Asia, is an endangered species with less than 40,000 remaining worldwide - less than a tenth of the African elephant population. Wild Asian elephants suffer severe habitat loss in some of the most densely human-populated regions on the planet. Their traditional territories and migration routes have been fragmented by development, highways and industrial mono-crops such as palm oil and rubber tree plantations, which has destroyed millions of hectares of forest ecosystems. With no access to their natural habitat, elephants are forced into deadly confrontations with humans where neither species wins. Asian elephants are also poached for their ivory tusks, meat and body parts while baby elephants are captured from the wild and sold into the tourism industry. Worldwide, Asian elephants are trained, traded and used for entertainment in tourist parks and circuses, and also for illegal logging activities. These captive elephants are often mistreated, abused and confined to sub-standard facilities without adequate veterinarian care.

I have spent hours and hours watching elephants, and come to understand what emotional creatures they are...it's not just a species facing extinction, it's massive individual suffering."
- Dr. Jane Goodall

Elephants and humans share a long history throughout our civilization. The expanse of the African habitat and the enormous size and aggressive posture of the African elephant has allowed it to resist captivity. But the Asian elephant has lived alongside humans for over 4,000 years and is imbued with reverence, tradition and spirituality across many cultures. In Thailand, the elephant is a national icon: it has a national holiday designated in its honor and elephants can receive a Royal title from the King.

Yet while elephants have lived alongside humans for so long, there is still much we don't know about them. With the largest brain of any land animal, they are smart, sentient, social and empathetic, qualities we strive for ourselves. We share so many characteristics with elephants that they may well be more like us than any other animal. But we are risking their future and, in the process, damaging the integral habitat required for biodiversity throughout Asia and Africa.

Elephants are a keystone species. It means they create and maintain the ecosystems in which they live and make it possible for a myriad of plant and animal species to live in those environments as well. The loss of elephants gravely affects many species that depend on elephant-maintained ecosystems and causes major habitat chaos and a weakening to the structure and diversity of nature itself. To lose the elephant is to lose an environmental caretaker and an animal from which we have much to learn.

Without elephants there will be major habitat changes, with negative effects on the many species that depend on the lost habitat."
- Samuel Wasser, University of Washington

We can save elephants by implementing stronger protection policies for wild elephants at both local and international levels of government; stronger enforcement and legislative measures against the poaching and illegal trade of ivory; better management of natural elephant habitats; better education about the vital role of the elephant in ecosystems; more viable alternative economic opportunities for those whose livelihoods depend on elephants; improved treatment for captive elephants; and, where appropriate, reintroduction of captive elephants into protected sanctuaries that allow a natural replenishing of endangered populations. These are just some of the goals that numerous elephant conservation organizations are focusing on around the world to prevent the extinction of wild elephants and the destruction of their habitat, and to improve the quality of life for those elephants in captivity.

Elephants are running out of space and time. Before we know it they will be gone - unless we collectively stop the senseless poaching and consumer demand for ivory, and allocate protected natural habitat in countries where elephants and other wildlife can thrive now, and in the future.

Because without elephants, just what kind of world would it be?

photo credit: Patricia Sims

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Why World Elephant Day? Because the world's elephants are in trouble and need your help. Elephant numbers have dropped by 62% over the last decade, and they could be mostly extinct by the end of the next decade. An estimated 100 African elephants are killed each day by poachers seeking ivory, meat and body parts, leaving only 400,000 remaining.

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Elephants: Learn about the biggest land animal.

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Why do Elephants have big ears, trunks, tusks? Learn about elephants, the endangered giants of India and Africa

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When an elephant drinks, it sucks as much as 2 gallons (7.5 liters) of water into its trunk at a time. Then it curls its trunk under, sticks the tip of its trunk into its mouth, and blows. Out comes the water, right down the elephant's throat.

Since African elephants live where the sun is usually blazing hot, they use their trunks to help them keep cool. First they squirt a trunkful of cool water over their bodies. Then they often follow that with a sprinkling of dust to create a protective layer of dirt on their skin. Elephants pick up and spray dust the same way they do water-with their trunks.

Elephants also use their trunks as snorkels when they wade in deep water. An elephant's trunk is controlled by many muscles. Two fingerlike parts on the tip of the trunk allow the elephant to perform delicate maneuvers such as picking a berry from the ground or plucking a single leaf off a tree. Elephants can also use its trunk to grasp an entire tree branch and pull it down to its mouth and to yank up clumps of grasses and shove the greenery into their mouths.

When an elephant gets a whiff of something interesting, it sniffs the air with its trunk raised up like a submarine periscope. If threatened, an elephant will also use its trunk to make loud trumpeting noises as a warning.

Elephants are social creatures. They sometimes hug by wrapping their trunks together in displays of greeting and affection. Elephants also use their trunks to help lift or nudge an elephant calf over an obstacle, to rescue a fellow elephant stuck in mud, or to gently raise a newborn elephant to its feet. And just as a human baby sucks its thumb, an elephant calf often sucks its trunk for comfort. One elephant can eat 300 pounds (136 kilograms) of food in one day.

People hunt elephants mainly for their ivory tusks. Adult females and young travel in herds, while adult males generally travel alone or in groups of their own.

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When an elephant drinks, it sucks as much as 2 gallons (7.5 liters) of water into its trunk at a time. Then it curls its trunk under, sticks the tip of its trunk into its mouth, and blows. Out comes the water, right down the elephant's throat.

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We’ve been digging and digging, but we can’t find that page anywhere in our burrows.

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ReadWorks | Award-Winning, EdTech Nonprofit Organization

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ReadWorks is an edtech nonprofit organization that is committed to helping to solve America's reading comprehension crisis.

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ReadWorks | Award-Winning, EdTech Nonprofit Organization

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ReadWorks is an edtech nonprofit organization that is committed to helping to solve America's reading comprehension crisis.

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Elephant facts

1) There are threedifferent species of elephant - the African Savannah elephant, the African Forest elephant and the Asian elephant. Elephants are known for their large ears, tusks made of ivory and their trunks.

2) Elephants are the world's largest land animal! Male African elephants can reach 3m tall and weigh between 4,000 -7,500kg. Asian elephants are slightly smaller, reaching 2.7m tall and weighing 3,000- 6,000kg.

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3) There's an easy way to tell the African elephants apart from their Asian cousins - their ears! African elephants have large ears shaped like the continent of Africa! Asian elephants' ears are smaller and shaped like India. Cool, huh?

4) You can tell a lot about an elephant by looking at their tusks! Elephant tusks never stop growing, so enormous tusks can be a sign of an old elephant. Both male and female African elephants grow tusks, but only male Asian elephants grow them. A tusk-less adult elephant is likely to be a female Asian elephant.

5) Until recently, African Forest elephants were thought to be a subspecies of the African elephant, but new research discovered that they are actually a separate species entirely. These elephants live in the tropical forests of Africa's Congo Basin. They have straighter tusks and more rounded ears than Savannah elephants.

6) These magnificent mammals spend between 12 to 18 hours eating grass, plants and fruit every single day! They use their long trunks to smell their food and lift it up into their mouth - yum!

7) All that eating means one thing, gang, an awful lot of poo! Each elephant creates about one tonne of poo per week, which keeps the soil fertile and disperses tree seeds. Elephants also dig waterholes and create footpaths, literally changing the landscape around them!

8) In Mount Elgon National Park in , a group of elephants use their tusks to mine for salt in underground caves! They feel their way around with their trunks and eat the salts by breaking them off with their tusks.

9) Elephants have created their very own sunscreen! After a river or swamp bath, they'll throw mud and sand up and over themselves to protect their skin from the hot, burning sun. Clever!

10) Sadly, elephants are in trouble. Many are killed by humans for their ivory tusks, because they've come into conflict with communities or simply for sport. There are far fewer Asian elephants than there are African elephants. Asian elephants also face threats from tourist attractions where people pay to ride on their backs or watch them paint pictures using their trunks.

Check out more articles about awesome elephants! Read our interview with Harry Potter star Evanna Lynch to find out how she's helping elephants, and learn how one young boy is taking action to save these incredible animals.

What did you think of our elephant facts? Let us know by leaving a comment, below!

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Elephant facts | Animals | National Geographic Kids

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Discover awesome elephant facts with Nat Geo Kids. You'll discover different elephant species, learn where they live and more...

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Watch to discover interesting facts about animals from all over the world.

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