elephant

Elephants are the largest living land animals, characterized by their long trunk (elongated upper lip and nose), columnar legs, ivory tusks, and huge head with wide flat ears. They are found most often in savannas, grasslands, and forests, but they occupy a wide range of habitats, including deserts, swamps, and highlands in tropical and subtropical regions of Africa and Asia.

Elephants are herbivores: they eat a range of plants, including grasses, fruit, and roots. An adult elephant consumes about 100 kg (220 pounds) of food and 100 litres (26 gallons) of water per day. These amounts can be double for a hungry and thirsty individual. Such consumption makes elephants an important ecological factor, because it substantially affects and even alters the ecosystems elephants live in.

There are three different species of elephants: the African savanna, or bush, elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. The African forest elephant, recognized as a separate species in 2000, is smaller than the savanna elephant. There are three subspecies of Asian elephant: the Indian (or mainland), the Sumatran, and the Sri Lankan.

Elephants gestate for 18 to 22 months, which is the longest gestation period of any mammal.

Asian and African elephants are listed as endangered species. They are threatened by habitat loss and poaching. At the beginning of the 21st century, fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants remained in the wild. From 1979 to 1989 the number of African elephants in the wild was reduced by more than half, from 1,300,000 to 600,000, partly as a result of commercial demand for ivory.