Did You Know...
Elephants & the Ivory Trade
www.elephantopia.org
- There are two species of elephants: African and Asian
- African male elephants are the LARGEST LAND MAMMALS on the planet - reaching heights up to 13 feet and weighing 15,000lbs
- Female elephants have the longest gestation period of any animal - 22 months
- Elephants don't sweat - they use their ears to cool off
- Elephants can get a sunburn and use dust and mud as a natural sunscreen
- An elephant trunk has over 40,000 muscles in it - compare that to us humans, our whole body only has 639 muscles
Did You Know...
- Female elephants live together in herds their entire life while male elephants live alone and with bachelor herds from the age of about 14
- Elephants show deep emotional connections to one another - they even give hugs using their trunks!
- Elephants are called KEYSTONE SPECIES because so many other species of plant and animal life rely on them for survival
- Elephants eat 200-600 lbs of food a day and drink up to 50 gallons of water a day
- Elephants are afraid of bees
- Elephant have poor eyesight and use their trunks to "see" the world around them through smell and touch
The TRUTH
about TUSKS
one of the most prominent features of the elephant - their tusks! But what are they?
Unfortunately, those ivory tusks are worth $1500 per pound on the illegal wildlife market in China & the United States.
Every 15 minutes an elephant is killed by poachers for their ivory tusks...that's nearly 100 elephants a day!
If nothing is done to stop the poachers, elephants may be extinct in just a few decades!
The hidden part of the tusk is a pulp cavity, made up of blood and nerves
Elephants prefer one tusk over the other, much like humans prefer a left or right hand
Elephants use their tusks to dig for water, move debris out of the way, and to fight off predators.
Tusks are basically
elongated incisors,
like teeth...except
unlike teeth, they
cannot be pulled out
without killing the elephant
Tusks never stop growing - the bigger the tusks, the older the elephant!
1/3 of the tusk is hidden from sight, embedded in the elephant's head
Both male and female African elephants have tusks - only Male Asian elephants have tusks