Elephant

Elephants are the largest animals on land and some of the smartest, too. They live in close families led by a grandmother, comfort each other with hugs (trunk wraps!), and remember friends and places for decades.

Elephants live on the savannas and in the forests of Africa and Asia, and they are the largest animals on land. Everything about them is big: the ears that flap like fans to shed heat, the thick legs that carry all that weight, and the trunk, which is really a nose and upper lip fused into one incredible tool with around 40,000 muscles. An elephant can use its trunk to tear down a branch, pick up a single peanut, suck up water to spray into its mouth, or reach out and touch a friend.

Elephants are herbivores with enormous appetites, eating grass, leaves, fruit, roots and bark for most of the day and drinking a great deal of water. Because they eat so much and travel so far to find it, they shape the whole landscape: they knock down trees that open up grassland, dig for water in dry riverbeds that other animals then drink from, and spread seeds in their dung across miles of ground. Scientists call them a keystone species — take elephants away and the savanna changes.

An elephant herd is a family of mothers, daughters, sisters and calves, led by the oldest female, the matriarch, who remembers where the water is in a drought and which paths are safe. Calves are born big but clumsy, and the whole herd helps look after them, steadying a stumbling baby with a trunk or forming a ring around it when danger comes. Elephants comfort each other, greet old friends and appear to mourn family members that die. Both African and Asian elephants are endangered, mainly because of poaching for ivory and shrinking habitat.

Here is every elephant fact from this page and the elephant quiz in one list — handy for a school project or a car-ride quiz.

1. An elephant's trunk has around 40,000 muscles. Your whole body has about 600!
2. Elephants talk in rumbles so deep humans can't hear them — and feel them through the ground miles away.
3. Elephant herds are led by the oldest female, the matriarch.
4. Elephants are the only land animal that can't jump.
5. They flap their giant ears like fans to cool down.
6. An elephant can spend most of its day eating to fill its huge body.
7. Elephants can live 60 to 70 years, almost as long as people.

❓ Common questions about elephants

No — elephants are wild animals that belong in the wild, and keeping one would be unsafe and almost always illegal. But if elephants are your favorite, here's the closest pet you actually can welcome home:

Meet the DogBecause no pet is anything like an elephant, but for a big-hearted, intelligent, social companion, a dog comes closest. See care guide →

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