There are about 400,000 African elephants left in the world, but only 40,000 or so Asian elephants. Wild Asian elephants have more changeable social networks. Some male Asian elephants never grow tusks – in Thailand these elephants are affectionately known as “ladyboys”.Īfrican elephants have a strict hierarchy by age and are led by the oldest and wisest female, the matriarch. The tusk is essentially an elephant’s incisor, albeit very elongated, and if an elephant loses his tusks, they do not grow back. However a female Asian elephant can have “tushes”, which are basically very small tusks. In African elephants, the males and females grow tusks, but in Asian elephants, it is normally only the males that have tusks. But they can walk very fast: Asian elephants can move at 25 km/hour and African elephants can reach 40km/hour. The world’s largest elephant on record was actually an Indian elephant – he weighed 7.7 tons and stood 3.43m tall! Elephants typically weigh up to 6.5 tons in Africa and 5.5 tons in Asia.Įlephants are unable to trot or run because they cannot have all four feet off the ground at the same time. African elephants and Asian elephants are the only remaining species of the elephant family, but elephants once lived on every continent across the world, apart from Australia and Antarctica, inhabiting a range of environments from rainforests, to savanna to deserts.Īsian elephants have three main subspecies- Sumatran (the smallest and palest), Indian (in the middle) and Sri Lankan (usually the biggest and darkest).
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