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Credit: Elephant image Shutterstock

Elephants are the largest land animals on Earth. They have characteristic long noses, or trunks; large, floppy ears; and wide, thick legs. There are two species of elephant. The Asian elephant and the African elephant live on separate continents and have many unique features. There are several subspecies that belong to one or the other of these two main species, though there is disagreement over just how many subspecies there are.

African elephants are the larger of the two species. They grow 8.2 to 13 feet (2.5 to 4 meters) from shoulder to toe and weigh 5,000 to 14,000 lbs. (2,268 to 6,350 kilograms), according to the National Geographic. Asian elephants can grow up to 6.6 to 9.8 feet (2 to 3 m) from shoulder to toe and weigh up to 2.25 to 5.5 tons (2,041 to 4,990 kg).

Older elephants with larger tusks are becoming rarer due to their ivory.

Credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim, CC BY-SA

African elephants live in sub-Saharan Africa, the rain forests of Central and West Africa and the Sahel desert in Mali. Asian elephants live in Nepal, India and Southeast Asia in scrub forests and rain forests.

Elephants eat grasses, roots, fruit and bark. They use their tusks to pull the bark from trees and dig roots out of the ground.

An elephant has an appetite that matches its size. An adult can eat 300 lbs. (136 kg) of food in a day, according to the National Geographic.

Extra large elephants are prone to health problems. But it's difficult to measure body fat on the huge creatures.

Credit: Alta Oosthuizen/Shutterstock.com

A group of elephants is called a herd. The herd is led by a matriarch, which is the oldest female. Females, as well as young and old elephants, stick together in a herd. Adult males tend to wander on their own.

Elephants also have certain rules. For example, when they are meeting each other, they expect the other elephant to extend its trunk in greeting. The matriarch will often teach young elephants in her herd how to act properly.

Male elephants are called bulls and females are called cows. After mating, the cow will be pregnant for around 22 months. When the baby elephant is finally born, it can weigh around 200 lbs. (91 kg) and stand about 3 feet (1 m) tall.

A baby elephant is called a calf. As the calf grows, it will gain 2 to 3 lbs. every day until its first birthday. By the time they are 2 or 3 years old, calves are ready to be weaned. Male calves will wander off on their own, while females will stay with their mothers. When they are 13 to 20 years old, they will be mature enough to have their own young. Elephants live 30 to 50 years in the wild.

The taxonomy of elephants, according to the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS), is:

Kingdom: Animalia
Subkingdom: Bilateria
Infrakingdom: Deuterostomia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Infraphylum: Gnathostomata
Superclass: Tetrapoda
Class: Mammalia
Subclass: Theria
Infraclass: Eutheria
Order: Proboscidea
Family: Elephantidae
Genera & species: Loxodonta africana (African savannah elephant), Loxodonta cyclotis (African forest elephant), Elephas maximus (Asian elephant)
Subspecies: ITIS recognizes:

Elephas maximus indicus (Indian elephant)

Elephas maximus maximus (Sri Lankan elephant)

Elephas maximus sumatranus (Sumatran elephant)

Another possible subspecies is Elephas maximus borneensis (Borneo pygmy elephant). The World Wildlife Fund has determined that DNA evidence proves that the Borneo pygmy elephant is genetically different from other Asian elephants.

The male elephant Changila, shortly before poachers killed him near the Samburu National Reserve in Kenya.

Credit: David Daballen

According to the Red List of Threatened Species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Asian elephant is endangered. Though it is not known exactly how many Asian elephants remain, it is believed that the population is decreasing. The African elephant is considered vulnerable. Overall, its populations are increasing. According to the African Wildlife Foundation, there are around 470,000 African elephants roaming the globe.

The African elephant can be identified by its ears. Stretched out, its ears are shaped like the African continent. Asian elephants have smaller ears, which are more rounded on top and flat along the bottom. Heat radiates out of the elephant's massive ears, acting as a cooling mechanism.

The largest elephant ever recorded was an African elephant, according to the San Diego Zoo. It was 24,000 lbs. (10,886 kg) and 13 feet (3.96 m) tall from its feet to its shoulders.

When it gets too hot, African elephants will suck water into their trunks and then blow it back out to shower themselves with a cool mist.

An elephant's trunk has more than 100,000 muscles, according to National Geographic. They use it to breathe, pick things up, make noises, drink and smell.

In the same way that humans tend to be right-handed or left-handed, elephants can be right-tusked or left-tusked. Their dominant tusk is easy to identify, because it will be more worn down than the less dominant tusk, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

An elephant's skin can be as thick as 1 inch, but it is sensitive to the sun. To protect it, elephants will cover themselves in mud or dust.

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Facts About Elephants | African Elephants & Asian Elephants

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Elephants are the largest land animals on Earth. They have characteristic long noses, or trunks; large, floppy ears; and wide, thick legs. There are two species of elephant. The Asian elephant and the African elephant live on separate continents and have many unique features.

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Animals Elephants Wallpaper #15. Wallpapers Also available in 1024x768,1280x1024,1920x1080,1920x1200 screen resolutions.

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they have very clumzy babys becase they fall over all the time

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they have very clumzy babys becase they fall over all the time

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Fast FactsStatus:VulnerableType:MammalDiet:HerbivoreAverage life span in the wild:Up to 70 yearsSize: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)Group name:HerdSize relative to a 6-ft (2-m) man:

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Fast FactsStatus:VulnerableType:MammalDiet:HerbivoreAverage life span in the wild:Up to 70 yearsSize: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)Group name:HerdSize relative to a 6-ft (2-m) man:

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About the African Elephant

African elephants are the largest land animals on Earth. They are slightly larger than their Asian cousins and can be identified by their larger ears that look somewhat like the continent of Africa. (Asian elephants have smaller, rounded ears.)

Elephant ears radiate heat to help keep these large animals cool, but sometimes the African heat is too much. Elephants are fond of water and enjoy showering by sucking water into their trunks and spraying it all over themselves. Afterwards, they often spray their skin with a protective coating of dust.

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. (Asian elephants have one.)

Both male and female African elephants have tusks they use to dig for food and water and strip bark from trees. Males use the tusks to battle one another, but the ivory has also attracted violence of a far more dangerous sort.

Because ivory is so valuable to some humans, many elephants have been killed for their tusks. This trade is illegal today, but it has not been completely eliminated, and some African elephant populations remain endangered.

Elephants eat roots, grasses, fruit, and bark, and they eat a lot of these things. An adult elephant can consume up to 300 pounds of food in a single day.

These hungry animals do not sleep much, and they roam over great distances while foraging for the large quantities of food that they require to sustain their massive bodies.

Female elephants (cows) live in family herds with their young, but adult males (bulls) tend to roam on their own.

Having a baby elephant is a serious commitment. Elephants have a longer pregnancy than any other mammal-almost 22 months. Cows usually give birth to one calf every two to four years. At birth, elephants already weigh some 200 pounds and stand about 3 feet tall.

African elephants, unlike their Asian relatives, are not easily domesticated. They range throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the rain forests of central and West Africa. The continent's northernmost elephants are found in Mali's Sahel desert. The small, nomadic herd of Mali elephants migrates in a circular route through the desert in search of water.

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About the African Elephant African elephants are the largest land animals on Earth. They are slightly larger than their Asian cousins and can be identified by their larger ears that look somewhat like the continent of Africa. (Asian elephants have smaller, rounded ears.)