Social Structure

A typical elephant family is comprised of a group of related females (maybe 2, maybe 40) and their young, including males younger than about 14.

Different families sometimes meet and feed in the same area. The family is led by the oldest female, the"matriarch", and the others follow her lead in every circumstance.  She decides when to stop, and when to move on, and where to go.

Males are less communal, traveling sometimes among other males and at other times from family to family in search of mates.  About once a year males enter a state of sexual excitement called musth, and they may fight one another for rights to a female.

Elephant bulls in musth are famously uncontrollable, and take on violent, insane characteristics--even attacking their caretakers in captivity--and during this time glands on their cheeks, called the temporal glands, swell and emit a sticky liquid which can often be seen running down their faces.  While in musth they send out low-frequency calls to other females, and if one responds in the distance they will follow her.

A female who is "in heat," called estrus (and whose temporal glands will also be secreting), may not allow a male to mount her if she discovers he is young and small.  Females prefer older males, and since older males ward off the younger, less experienced ones, it usually takes years before a young bull successfully produces an offspring.  Once a male and female have met, they will sniff out one another to decide if the other is eligible, and if so, they will mate.

Diet

Elephants eat roots, grasses, fruit, and bark. An adult elephant can consume up to 300 pounds 

(136 kilograms) of food in a single day.

The Tusk

African elephants use their tusks to dig for food and water and strip bark from trees. Males use the tusks to battle one another, but the ivory has also attracted violence of a far more dangerous sort. Because ivory is so valuable to some humans, many elephants have been killed for their tusks. This trade is illegal today, but it has not been completely eliminated, and some African elephant populations remain endangered.

The Trunk

An elephant’s trunk is used for smelling, breathing, drinking, and also for grabbing things. The 

trunk alone contains about 100,000 different muscles. At the end of an African Elephant’s trunk, 

there are two fingerlike features that help them grab small items.   

The Ears

Elephant ears radiate heat to help keep these large animals cool, but sometimes the African 

heat is too much. Elephants love water and enjoy showering by sucking water into their trunks 

and spraying it all over themselves. Afterwards, they often spray their skin with a protective 

coating of dust.

The Facts

Type: Mammal

Diet:

Herbivore

Average life span in the wild:

Up to 70 years

Size:

Height at the shoulder, 8.2 to 13 ft (2.5 to 4 m)

Weight:

5,000 to 14,000 lbs (2,268 to 6,350 kg)

Group name:

Herd

Protection status:

Threatened

Size relative to a 6-ft (2-m) man: