The largest land mammal in the world, the male African elephant can be up to four metres tall – as high as a double-decker bus – and weigh over six tonnes. The average Asian male elephant is shorter than a male African elephant, up to three metres high and five tones in weight. Most male and female African elephants have tusks, incisor teeth which can be up to three metres long, but only some male Asian elephants have them. Elephants can live for up to 60 years in the wild, and longer in captivity, and Asian elephants in particular are often bred in captivity and used as working animals.
Both types flap their large ears to keep cool and use their strong, sensitive trunks to breath, drink, bathe and feed, whether picking up a tiny berry or tearing a branch from a tree. An African elephant drinks as much as 220 litres of water a day.
Elephants communicate with low growling sounds, often inaudible to the human ear, but audible to elephants several kilometres away. They famously form very close family bonds and are highly protective of the younger or weaker members of the herd and visibly grieve when a member of the herd dies. The small family groups are led by a matriarch – the dominant female.
Elephants are under threat from the illegal ivory trade, poaching for meat and human encroachment onto their habitat. The latter is an increasing problem, with elephants trampling crops and damaging infrastructure in their search for food, resulting in growing tension between the species.
