Elephant Facts for Kids to Get Know 10 Easy Things

Elephant facts for kids. The elephant is a plant-eating mammal which is known as the largest terrestrial animal in the world with a huge trunk and long ivory tusks, large ears. There are only two species living in various parts of the world which are Asian elephants and African elephants. Here are some common facts including where do elephants live, what do elephants eat, etc for kids to get know…

  1. Where do elephants live?

    Where do elephants live

Elephants are found in many types of environments in the world. Usually, African elephants are found in sub-Saharan east and central Africa. Malis Sahel desert is also an area which African elephants live. Asian elephants are found in south and southeast Asia forests including India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bangladesh, Bhutan. They usually wander in grassy areas of the forest.

  1. Elephants are very intelligent

Elephants have a brain with the mass of just over 5kg. they a total of 3 billion of neurons. Elephants have memory, communication, grief, learning, mimicry, play, altruism, usage of tools like abilities because of this much of large brain. Also, elephants can understand pointing on something with their trunk.

  1. Birth and childhood of elephantsBirth and childhood of elephants

Elephants’ gestation period is almost 22 months or more. Newborn elephants are born with the mass of 77-113 kg.  A newborn baby elephant may consume about 11.4 liters of milk in a single day. The childhood of an elephant lasts until weaned off its mother’s milk. This can take between 5 to years. The brain of newborn elephant occupies about 30-40% from their body size. Usually, female elephants in the herd gather to welcome the new-born. Within initial minutes of the birth mother attempts to help the new born baby to rise in feet. The major activities done by infant elephants are traveling, resting and feeding. But with the time the time they spend for resting and travel is reduced spend more time for feeding. The distance of relationship between the calf and his/her mother is increased with age. Elephant Facts for Kids

  1. What do elephants eat?

They take a large amount of diet daily because of their huge body needs to be maintained. They usually an elephant eats about 150-250 kg  (varies according to the species) of plant materials in a single day. They drink from 40 to 212 liters of water a day. They generally prefer to eat large plants and big trees. Not only trees they add bark of some trees to increase the amount of fiber in the diet. Except for grass and leaves of trees, they enjoy eating fruits and vegetables like berries, bananas, nuts, seeds, etc.

Primarily elephants use their trunk as a utensil in feeding.

What do elephants like to fun?

Elephants like to spend their leisure time doing some funny things. They like muddy bath very much. They do this not only for pleasure but also it helps to cover their skin for the high temperature of Africa and Asia by giving cooling sensations.

Elephants are very social animals hence they prefer to spend time together. They use their trunk to greet each other and the do caressing one another. A trunk is also used to smell the other elephant and they have an ability to find out about other one and to give a tender hug.

Elephants like very much to play in the water. They are good swimmers. Also being in water helps them to cool down their body temperature. Ears of elephants also help in this work. They slap their ears on the surface of the water for this.

  1. They live in herds

Elephants usually live in herds. They have a matriarchal society and males and females live distinctly different lives. Usually, females live with other females such as mother, sister, daughter er, aunt. Those groups are led by the eldest female. But males mostly live independently. When the age of a male elephant becomes fourteen it usually departs from the herd.

7. Tusks and skin

Tusks of elephants are made by modifying the incisors. There are some types of elephants which the female elephant does not have tusks. In the species which have tusks, the males have tusks longer than females’. The shape of the tusk is usually curved. Generally, it is known that elephants like one of their tusks (left or right) than the other. Using one of their hands than another one is similar to this.

The length of the tusk is not large than it seems actually longer than that because one-third of the task is hidden in elephants’ heads and that part cannot be seen from the outside. Growing of tusks are not stopped. It keeps growing all over the life time.

Elephants use their tusks as weapons when it has to face predators like tigers, to dig for salt and to move things from one place to another.

Elephants’ skin is very tough and thick. African elephants have thicker skin than Asian elephants. Usually, it can be grown up to 4 cm. skin has wrinkles and wrinkles are also higher in number in African elephants. These wrinkles are used to keep the body cool by increasing the area of the body surface. They trap moisture and evaporating it to the environment helps to reduce the body temperature. Elephant Facts for Kids

  1. What are the predators of elephants?

Predators of elephants are commonly tigers and lions. It is hard to attack elephants because they form strong herds. Elephants can be a meal for predator when one falls behind the rest and live alone. Elephant Facts for Kids

  1. Threats faced by elephants

Almost all the wild animals are threatened by human activities. Deforestation is a huge threat to wild elephants because they need a large area to wander searching for food. The forested area of the world has become very small due to urbanization. Also having ivory in their tusks has been a threat to them because they are hunted by humans.

  1. How can we protect them?

We should stop buying, selling or even wearing ivory. We can help conservation efforts. Conflicting to further deforestation, hunting them will help them live long on the earth. Deforestation is the main threat to what do elephants eat because they all are herbivores and need a massive amount of vegetation to live. Elephant Facts for Kids

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