Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Proboscidea
Family: Elephantidae
Genus: Elephas
Species: E. maximus
Subspecies: E. m. indicus
Trinomial name : Elephas maximus indicus / Loxodonta africana
Elephants are mammals, and the largest land animals alive today
Amazing Facts about Elephants
- Has hearing range between 1 and 20,000 Hz. The very low frequency sounds are in the "infrasound" range.
- Humans cannot hear sounds in the infrasound range.
- Elephant Facts ... Did You know ?
- Elephants stomp when they walk.
- Elephants sleep standing up.
- Sometimes baby elephants lie down to sleep.
- Elephants bathe. Sometimes the spray dirt on themselves to get the parasites off. Sometimes they bathe in mud
- Elephants live in herds.
- They cool off by fanning their ears. This cools the blood in their ears. That blood goes to the rest of their body and cools off the elephant.
- They poop 80 pounds in one day.
- Elephants weigh 10,000 pounds. It would take 250 students to add up to 10,000 pounds.
- They collect food with their trunks.
- Only grown up ladies and their babies live in the herds.
- The daddy elephants leave the herd when they are 12 years old.
- They fight with their tusks.
- They eat grass and bark.
- During the wet season they eat things low to the ground.
- During the dry season they use their trunk to gather food from trees and bushes.
- They suck up water into their trunks and shoot it into their mouths.
- Elephants need lots of room to roam and eat. (Some of us think that this must mean they are not happy in the zoo or in the circus.)
- They can run 24mph for short distances.
