The African Elephant

There are few sights in this world more immediately guaranteed to stop the heart than the adult African Elephant when it is surprised or threatened. Extended in fear or anger their total spread can be greater than the animal’s height, some ten to twenty feet. The whole impression is a sheer and powerful mass. Of all mammals survived the last ice age the elephant survived the most. The flapping ears may measure six feet from top to bottom.


Only whales are larger than an elephant. The largest elephant, killed in modern times, stood more than six feet high at the shoulders. They weighed almost twelve tons, although many different kinds of elephants lived in past eras. Next to its size, the most arresting feature of any elephant is its trunk. Today there are only two elephants, the African and the Asiatic.
The elephant eats by picking its food up by its trunk. The elephant eats the grass in Africa. The African’s life cycle has several phases. First it is born. Then it finds a mate. Last, it has its babies.