September 22nd was established as National Elephant Appreciation Day in 1996 in honor of the largest land animal in the world. The holiday was founded by pachyderm lover Wayne Hepburn after his daughter gave him a paperweight of elephants on parade and he became fascinated by them. To some, it’s just another animal, but the more you know about them, the more you come to appreciate these fascinating creatures.
Here are some fantastic facts about these magnificent mammals:
1. The African elephant is the largest land mammal on Earth, and its brain can weigh up 5.4 kilograms. (And by the way, did you know they also make rumbling sounds that are considered to be similar to purring in cats?)
2. African elephant ears are the shape of Africa. It’s one of the ways you can tell them apart from the Asian elephant. Also, the African elephant lives longer than the Asian elephant and is heavier.
3. Ever heard of an elephant hug? They don’t hug exactly like we do, but elephants do wrap their trunks around younger relatives to reassure them. When they greet each other, they twine their trunks. However, anatomically, the trunk is a combination of the upper lip and nose. So, basically, elephants hug with their noses.
4. Elephants can learn and feel emotions, and if a member of their family group is injured, the rest of the group most likely will come to help it. Don’t upset them, though; elephants have six sets of cheek teeth (molars and premolars) in their lifetime. You wouldn’t want to get in between those nashers.
5. Elephants can swim and use their trunks as a snorkel when crossing rivers. They also use their trunks like a hand in other ways, such as holding branches, scratching themselves and throwing large objects in threat displays.
6. A female elephant’s pregnancy is the longest of any mammal; full-term is 22 months. Elephants can also live to the age of 70.
7. Baby elephants love their moms and stay with them for up to 10 years. They learn to eat by taking food from their mom’s mouth with their trunks.
8. Mud bath anyone? Elephants can get a sunburn and use the mud to protect their skin from the sun. They have grayish to brown skin, and their body hair is sparse and coarse.
9. Elephants can reach speeds of up to 40 kilometers per hour. And when it comes time to rest, they often doze standing up because they find it hard to lie down and get up.
10. People assume that elephants are noisy, but they sometimes make sounds we can’t hear. The pitch of their calls can be below the range of human hearing. Low sounds from the trunk are a growl, snort or roar, and high sounds are trump, bark and cry.
11. It’s true that an elephant never forgets, and that’s because of the size o heir hippocampus, the part of the brain where memories are stores, is so large.
12. While we’re on the subject of brains, did you know that elephants hae the largest brains of any land animal in pure mass? At birth, an elephant’s brain size has only reached 35a% of its potential size, and that means that they have a huge capacity for learning as they grow and develop.
13. With such big brains, that means that elephants are highly intelligent, and highly social. They have their own language, and this makes it easy for them to form strong bonds with each other, and with other species.
14. Elephants are one of the few animals with self awareness. Like humans, apes, and dolphins, elephants can recognize themselves in a mirror.
15. Their trunks have 40,000 muscles and tendons, and it takes about a year for them to learn how to use it. Adam Stone, director of elephant husbandry at the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, says that “with a baby elephant, you will see that its trunk looks like a worm on the end of a hook, even when they’re nursing. They’ll trip over it; it’s really complex.”
16. They weigh thousands of pounds and still manage to be quick and nimble. They can move up to 35 mph, stop on a dime, and travel over mountain ranges with no problems.
17. They follow the oldest female in their group, which is not typical of social hierarchy in the animal kingdom. They do this because she has the most memory, and knows where the safe haven is, where the food is, and where to go in a storm.
18. In the wild, elephants can live to be in their 40s. In captivity, they can live even longer.
19. Elephants have the longest eyelashes in the world. They’re about 5 inches.
I think we can all agree that elephants are amazing creatures. They deserve to be appreciated, loved, even revered. Not hunted for their tusks. Let’s not just appreciate the elephant, but fight to save and preserve this amazing species that shares our planet, not just today, but every day.
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Photo Credit: Katrina Brown / Shutterstock.com