Elephants

Elephants live on land. They are the biggest animals on land. The biggest elephant in the world was about 3.96 metres tall and weighed more than 12 tonnes!

Every elephant has a trunk. This is the elephant’s nose, but it has no bones in it. Elephants use their trunks to smell, to touch and to breathe. They also use their trunks to suck water up and then blow the water into their mouths. Elephants use their trunks

to spray water or dust over themselves to keep cool, too.

Sometimes elephants flap their ears to keep cool. Elephants have very big ears!

Elephants also have two tusks. Most of the tusk is made of ivory. The tusks grow all the time, so old elephants can have very long tusks. The longest tusk was 3.49 metres! Some people kill elephants to get their tusks and make things, for example, jewellery.

There are two different elephants: African and Asian. African elephants are bigger and have longer tusks. African male and female elephants both have tusks, but only Asian male elephants have tusks. African elephants have bigger ears, but a smaller forehead. An African elephant’s ear can be more than one metre wide.

Most elephants live in forests or grasslands. They do not eat meat. They eat leaves, twigs, bark, grass and fruit. An elephant eats about 150 kilograms of food every day They have strong teeth at the back of their mouths. They grow new teeth all the time until they are about 55 years old.

Elephants also need to drink a lot of water. They are good swimmers and they like to splash in water, too.