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Elephants are pachyderms. (Remember the technicolor pachyderm song?)
There are two main kinds of elephants: African elephants and Asian elephants.
Elephants are endangered because they are hunted for the ivory in their tusks. When people but ivory it encourages poachers to hunt elephants. (You can still buy ivory soap)
Elephants are well known for their long trunks. There is a superstition that elephants with raised trunks are good luck. Some people collect elephant statues and toys, but only ones with raised trunks!
Elephants are caring family members, when one elephant child cries, the whole family goes to console it.
Elephants have wonderful memories. It's true, an elephant never forgets!
Elephants grieve for stillborn babies and other elephants that have died.
Female elephants are one half the size of male elephants.
No sweat! Elephants have no sweat glands, they use their ears to fan themselves in order to keep cool.
Asian elephants average between 2 and 3.5 meters tall.
They usually weigh between 2 and 5 tons.
Asian elephants have a light grey color.
The gestation period is between 19 and 22 monthes. This time is usually longer for male babies than for female babies.
African Elephants average between 3 and 4 meters tall.
They usually weigh between 4 and 7 tons.
African elephants have a dark grey color.
They have a longer gestation period than Asian elephants.
African elephants have coarser and fewer teeth than Asian elephants.
African elephants have two "fingers" on their trunks, Asians have only one.
The longer tusks on African elephants are used to dig for water in the warmer African climate.
Jumbo, a word used to desribe everything from jets to fountain drinks, was the name of the elephant P.T. Barnum had in his circus. Needless to say, it was a very large elephant!
Asian elephants are more closely related to Mammoths than to African elephants.