The loveable giants: 23 facts about elephants you won't forget

THE world was moved this week by the sight of a baby elephant in Kenya refusing to leave the body of its dead mother.

nature, animals, wildlife, elephants, Britain, zoos, JumboA female elephant at Whipsnade Zoo shows off her artistic talents [REX]

Shivering and dehydrated, five-month-old Sokotei kept a stubborn vigil by his parent’s side when she succumbed to infection.

It was a reminder of just how remarkable elephants are. Not only are they among the most social and intelligent members of the animal kingdom but they are capable of grief and compassion.

Here we look at some of their fascinating stories.


West Midlands Safari Park last week celebrated the birth of only the second elephant calf to be born as a result of artificial insemination in captivity. The male calf’s mother, 22-year-old Five, was impregnated with semen from a bull elephant that lives on the Phinda Reserve in South Africa. The male elephant concerned is also father to a female calf born last year at Vienna Zoo. “This really is fantastic news,” says head elephant keeper Andy Plumb. “The birth was an uncomplicated one and Five adores her new baby.”

While elephant graveyards are believed to be a myth elephants are the only members of the animal kingdom to have burial rituals

Female elephants live in herds of eight to 100 led by the most senior matriarch. They help each other find food and babysit each other’s calves. Males on the other hand leave the herd when they hit adolescence at around the age of 12 and live in temporary “bachelor herds” until they are mature enough to live alone. They then spend the rest of their lives moving from herd to herd.

Elephants communicate both within the herd and with other groups miles away by a combination of making sounds too low for the human ear to catch and by stamping their feet.

If one of their number falls sick other herd members will bring the patient food and water and help to support it in a standing position.

While elephant graveyards are believed to be a myth elephants are the only members of the animal kingdom to have burial rituals. Once it is clear an elephant is dead the herd will observe a period of silence and then dig a shallow grave and cover the corpse with dirt and branches. Similar respect is shown to the bodies of lone elephants stumbled upon by the herd – and there have even been instances of dead humans being given the same treatment.

The expression “an elephant never forgets” appears to have some basis in fact. Elephants have memories that span many years and this serves matriarchs well during dry seasons when they need to guide their herds, often for many miles, to watering holes they remember from the past.

The life expectancy of an elephant is similar to that of a human at 60-80 years.

nature, animals, wildlife, elephants, Britain, zoos, Jumbo, art, poaching, mammals, African elephants, cow elephants, KoreaMany elephants dies for this stash of ivory, seized in France [GETTY]

There were once 40 species of elephant but today only three survive and all are endangered. They are the Asian elephant, African bush elephant and African forest elephant.

Male and female African elephants have tusks but only male Asian elephants have them. They are used for defence, digging and finding food.

African bush elephants are found in the tropical grasslands of 37 countries south of the Sahara Desert while their forest elephant cousins inhabit the dense rainforests of west and central Africa. Meanwhile the Asian elephant is found in India, Sri Lanka, China and much of South-east Asia.

Cow elephants start to have calves when they are around 12 years old. They are fertile for only a few days each year and rarely have more than four calves during their lifetime. In their fertile period the bull elephant will court the female with various affectionate gestures and nuzzles. If his advances are reciprocated the couple will mate after 20 minutes or so of this foreplay. Once the female conceives she will be pregnant for 22 months, longer than any other land animal. Newborn calves weigh around 15st 7lb (100kg) and the mother will select other members of the herd to babysit so that she has time to eat enough to produce sufficient milk.

Jumbo has become a catch-all word for anything bumper-sized from a jumbo jet to a jumbo pack of crisps. But the first Jumbo was an African bush elephant born in 1861 that was taken to a French zoo as a calf. His name is believed to have been derived from the Swahili word for “boss” or “chief”. He was later transferred to a British zoo, where he gave children rides on his back and gained a cult following. When news broke that he was to be sold to the US 100,000 children wrote to Queen Victoria asking her to block the deal. Their pleas failed and he achieved even greater fame across the Atlantic until he died at 24 after being hit by a train.

The elephant is the only mammal that can’t jump.

One side effect of elephants being poached for their ivory is that the average size of tusks is decreasing. As the poachers go for bulls with the largest tusks elephants with smaller tusks survive to reproduce and tend to breed young with proportionately less ivory.

nature, animals, wildlife, elephants, Britain, zoos, Jumbo, art, poaching, mammals, African elephants, cow elephants, KoreaProud mum Five takes her new calf for a walk at West Midland Safari Park [PA]

Forget five a day. Elephants need up to 325lb (150kg) of vegetation daily to support their size and spend up to 16 hours a day collecting and munching on leaves, twigs, bamboo and roots. This plays havoc with their teeth which wear out so quickly that they have six to seven sets in their lifetime. Many solitary elephants starve to death when their last set wears out because there are no herd members to help them by providing pre-chewed food. They also drink around 45 gallons (210 litres) of water a day.

Lions sometimes attack young or weak elephants in the wild but the greatest predator is man. Many elephants are killed by poachers or die out through loss of habitat.

The trunk of an elephant can grow up to 6ft 6in (2m) and can weigh up to 22st (140kg). Apart from lifting food it allows it to drink by sucking up water and squirting it into its mouth. When elephants swim in deep water they can breathe by using their trunk as a snorkel. It also gives them a tremendous sense of smell – which is just as well because they have poor eyesight.

At around 11lb (5kg) the brain of a full-grown elephant is heavier than that of any other land animal and the species is considered to be one of the most intelligent. Apart from tool-using abilities they exhibit signs of grief, humour, playfulness and compassion. Some have even been taught to paint using their trunks which are believed to have up to 100,000 different muscles.

Animals don’t get much more laid-back than elephants. They have a pulse rate of 27 beats per minute compared with between 60 and 100 for a human and 1,000 for a canary.

Elephant feet are covered in soft padding that helps uphold their weight, prevents them slipping and dulls the sound they make on the move. It also allows them to pick up subsonic rumblings made by other elephants via ground vibrations.

Try telling a woman that she walks like an elephant and she’ll be insulted. But in East African society it is a compliment because despite their size elephants have a graceful gait and a light tread.

At the turn of the 20th century there were a few million African elephants and about 100,000 Asian elephants. Today there are an estimated 450,000–700,000 African elephants and between 35,000– 40,000 wild Asian elephants.

An elephant in Korea astonished his keepers by learning to imitate at least five words in their native tongue. It placed its trunk in its mouth and massaging its vocal tract into a different shape to mimic commands including “sit down”, “no”, “lie down” and “good”.