1. The African elephant is the biggest animal living on land. A fully grown male can weigh as much as 6 tons, which is about the same as a large school bus!

2. An elephant's trunk is actually a long nose used for smelling, breathing, trumpeting, and drinking. It’s also incredibly strong and flexible, containing about 40,000 different muscles.

3. Becaise they have thick skin, elephants are sometimes called "pacyderms" (derived from two Greek words meaning "thick" & "skin".). But their skin is also sensitive. To protect themselves from sunburn and bug bites, they frequently take mud baths or spray dust and sand over their bodies.

4 Their giant ears aren't just for hearing. Elephants flap their ears to cool down their body temperature. As they flap, blood flowing through the many veins in the ears cools down before traveling back to the rest of the body.

5. Elephants are herbivores, meaning they only eat plants. Because they are so large, they can spend up to 16 hours a day eating and may consume over 300 pounds of grass, leaves, and fruit in a single day.

6. Elephant tusks are actually enlarged incisor teeth that first appear when an elephant is about 2 years old. They keep growing throughout the elephant's entire life.

7. The saying "an elephant never forgets" is quite accurate! Elephants have the largest brain of any land mammal. They can remember the locations of water holes and recognize friends they haven’t seen for many years.

8. Elephants communicate using sounds called infrasound, which are too low for humans to hear. These sounds can travel through the ground, and other elephants "hear" them through their sensitive feet.

9. Elephants can't jump! Even though they are very athletic and great swimmers, elephants are one of the only mammals that cannot jump. Their leg bones are all pointed downwards, and they are simply too heavy to get all four feet off the ground at once!