• The African elephant is the largest of Africa's BIG 5 (elephant, rhinocerus, lion, leopard, buffalo).
• They are also the largest living land mammals on earth (record: 12 000 kg bull, shot in 1974 in Angola).
• They never stop growing and the skin reaches an average thickness of ± 3 cm.
• Africa's two surviving elephant species are the savannah elephant (Loxodonta africana) with the larger body and ears, and the smaller forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis).
  
  
• Tarzan's elephant's name is Tantor and that of the world's only flying elephant is Dumbo.
  
  
• Lenght of an adult bull's tail is ± 1,5 metres and also that of its S-shaped external sexual organ.
• The trunk can be up to 2,5 meters in length and ± 100 000 muscles are engaged in the movement of the trunk (no bones occur inside the trunk).
• The maximum height that a standing elephant can reach with its trunk is ± 6 metres.
• An adult African elephant bull's earflaps can reach a maximum width of ± 1,2 metres and the ears are used for cooling - the undersides of the earflaps are liberally supplied with blood vessels under the skin and earflapping creates cooling air currents over the blood vessels, which cools down the blood (up to 3 oC).
• There are no sweat glands or pores in an elephant's skin.
• An adult African Savannah elephant's front footprint measures between 50 and 58 cm in length and the the front feet are always larger than the hind feet since they to bear the weight of the colossal head and trunk.
  
  
• An elephant produces 28 teeth during its life time: two deciduous tusks (with which babies are born), two permanent tusks, and 24 molars (each molar with an average lenght of 20 - 30 cm and only two pairs (four) inside its mouth at any given time - they replace each other as it gets worn away).
• Both bulls and cows have tusks; tusks never stop growing and are elongated incisors (not canines); the base, affixed to the jaw, is hollow (viz. the nerve canal), with the rest of the tusk solid on the inside (record weight of the heaviest pair of tusks recorded: 199 kg (Kenya)).
• The main causes of an elephant's death are: hunting, disease, starvation as soon as the last molars are worn out; whilst a severe thunderstorm and the loss of a companion can lead to the sudden death of an elephant.
• The most sensitive part of an elephants body is the sole of its feet - which is also a poor conductor of electricity.
  
  
• An adult needs 150 – 300 kg of food and 100 – 220 litres of water per day and devotes 16 to 18 hours a day to feeding while they can carry water in its throat.
• African elephants feed mainly on grass, but will also eat fruit, roots and bark (herbivorous).
• Elephants are more nomadic and not territorial. This natural behavior prevents damage to the habitat - human fences disturb this behavior and cause habitat destruction by fenced-in elephants.
  
  
• Elephants are highly intelligent and sensitive mammals with an exceptional social structure.
  
• Their numbers decreased in Africa by more than 90% since 1930 - mainly due to poaching for their ivory, hunting, human war and political conflict, habitat lost and habitat destruction.
  

Mass (adult): male: 5 000 - 7 000 kg,
female: ± 3 500 kg.
Shoulder Height: 2,5 - 4 m.
Gestation: 22 months.
Birth: Usually one calf
Birth Mass: ± 120 kg.
Longevity: 55 to 70 years
Maximum speed: ± 40 km/h
Distribution: Africa.
Surviving: ± 650 000 but declining.

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