Elephants are incredible. So primitive, so old, and the baby elephants are so cute! We were on a river safari in Borneo when we saw a whole family of Asian Elephants (aka Asiatic Elephants or Elephas maximus). After seeing them in the wild, I was really curious and learned some interesting elephant facts. My photography is below, also with interesting Asian elephant facts are below:
- Elephants are the largest land animals living today. They’re massive!
- If you thought human pregnancy was challenging – check this out. Elephant pregnancies last 22 months, baby elephants can weight 260 pounds at birth.
- At full size, male Asian Elephants can weigh up to 12,000 pounds (5400 kg)! Females weigh up to 9000 pounds.
- Elephants typically live for 60 years in the wild (80 years in captivity).
- Asian Elephants can be up to 10 feet tall at the shoulder. They’re much smaller than African Elephants in mass, but are taller.
- They have up to 20 pairs of ribs and 34 caudal vertebrae (bones that make up their tails).
- Trunks are the single most important feature of an elephant, with 100,000 muscles in their trunk. It’s used for feeding, watering, smelling, breathing, drinking, touching, sound/communication, washing, and also for grabbing things.
