Surprising facts about elephants

They are the largest mammals that inhabit the mainland . Elephants live between 50 and 70 years, they have a spectacular limb: the trunk, which serves them for multiple functions such as drinking, picking up objects, making warning sounds and even saying hello, they are self-aware and show many human emotions such as grief for the death of a loved one, joy, anger, pain and compassion. They are surprising giants located in Africa and Asia , where they face important dangers such as poaching in search of their tusks and the loss of natural habitat, which brings them dangerously close to human settlements.

1. An elephant’s tusks continue to grow throughout its life. The tusks of an adult male grow about 17 centimeters a year. However, if they are damaged or broken, they will stay that way, just as if you remove them, they will not grow back. There are pachyderms that do not grow fangs. A 2018 study linked the birth of more tuskless or smaller elephants to poaching. I mean, it would be a way to protect yourself from it. The tusks protect the trunk and serve the elephant to collect food, defend itself and even to dig holes in search of water, in times of drought. Furthermore, each elephant has a “dominant tusk”, just as we are left-handed or right-handed.
2. The average life expectancy of an elephant is 50 to 70 years . The oldest elephant in the world lived to 86 years.
3. The trunk is its most important member since it is strong enough to tear off branches and sensitive enough to pick up a blade of grass. It has approximately 40,000 muscles (some sources point to 100,000) and with it they drink water, pick up objects, make warning sounds and even say hello to each other. In just 1.5 seconds, these animals are capable of sucking up to 3.7 liters of water with their trunks.
4. Females have a structured social order and spend their entire lives with their mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, and daughters.
5. Elephants are exceptionally intelligent and can show a wide variety of emotions such as joy, anger, pain, compassion … even mourning the death of a family member. Also, they are self-aware. They recognize themselves in the mirror!
6. The greatest threats to elephants are, on the one hand, poaching for the illegal trafficking of ivory from their tusks , which mainly affects the African elephant, and, on the other, the loss of their natural habitat, which generates conflicts between them and the humans . The latter happens mostly to Asian elephants.