Letaba Elephant Hall - Home of the Magnificent Seven
Amazing elephant facts
Elephants are amazing animals. If you don't believe us, just look at the facts below...
Name
The word elephant means 'big arch' in Latin (ele means 'arch' and phant means 'huge').
Eating
Adult elephant bulls can eat the equivalent of up to 3000 quarter-pounders in a day (up to 2-300 kg of food).
Elephants eat for at least 16 hours every day (if you ate that much you would not have time to go to school, watch TV or play with your friends!).
Drinking
Elephants can drink the equivalent of about 360 cans of soft drink in one go (120l of water).
Elephants can smell water from 30 km away (but you would get very thirsty on the 6 hour walk to reach it!).
Going to the toilet
Elephants produce about 100 to 155 kg of dung a day. Less than half of what they eat is digested effectively.
Running
Elephants can run as fast as a 50cc moped (40 km/h).
Height
The tallest elephant ever measured was almost the height of a double-decker bus (4m).
Weight
An average adult bull weighs as much as two mini-buses full of people (6 tonnes).
The heaviest elephant ever recorded weighed as much as 200 people (12 tonnes).
Babies
A newborn baby elephant weighs as much as two adult women (120 kg).
Baby elephants cannot use their trunk effectively until they are about a year old.
Tusks
The longest tusk ever recorded was the length of a small car (3.5m).
The heaviest tusk ever recorded weighed more than a well-built front-row rugby player (almost 120 kg).
Elephants can be right or left-tusked (just like you are right or left-handed).
Tail
An elephant's tail can be the height of a small human (1.5m).
Brain
An elephant brain weighs about four times a human brain (up to 5.5 kg). It is the biggest brain of any land mammal.
Heart
An elephant heart can be as heavy as a large dog (up to 21 kg). It is 60 times heavier than a human heart.
Teeth
Elephants' molar teeth can be as large as house bricks.
Ears
Elephants have the largest ears of any animal in the world.
Communication
Elephants can make sounds so deep they are two octaves below the lowest sound you are able to hear.
Elephants can communicate with each other over a distance of 10 km or more.
Acrobatics
Elephants walk on tip-toe.
Elephants can't jump.
Taming elephants
The first record of elephants being tamed dates back over 4000 years ago.
Over 2000 years ago, 37 elephants walked more than 2400 km across Southern Europe with Hannibal's army. They climbed two mountain ranges and survived the entire trip while 20,000 men died.
Ancient ancestors
Fossils of ancient tuskers have been found in South Africa, dating back to 250 million years ago.
Bibliography
APPS: Smithers' Mammals of Southern Africa. A Field Guide, Struik, Cape Town, 2000
Bosman/Hall-Martin: The Magnificent Seven and the other great tuskers of the Kruger National Park, Human & Rousseau, Cape Town, 1994
Meredith: The African Elephant: A Biography, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 2000