Are you in serious need of a pick-me-up because humans in your life are just not making sense today? It’s okay: animals make a lot more sense. Here are 10 facts about elephants that will make you smile.
Menopause, what?
Female elephants don’t hear their biological clock start ticking until much later in life than humans. Though their prime time to breed is in their teens and twenties, most can have babies into their 50’s! Elephants only live until about 50 so that means they’re fertile for almost their entire lives.
If you’re worried these friendly floppy-eared creatures are disappearing, don’t be! Zoo officials are in the process of opening the first ever elephant sperm bank, and have already collected 16 liters of the precious stuff.
You know that swimming is one of the best exercises for your joints, and elephants know it too. They seek out water not just for utilitarian purposes like hydration, but also sometimes for the sole purpose of playing in the waves. Pretty adorable, don’t you think? Check out the YouTube video for your daily dose of cuteness.
When a pregnant elephant is ready to give birth, her herd forms a circle around her to provide her a safe environment to go into labor. Once the baby comes out, the entire herd helps the little thing stand up. That’s one strong pack of midwives!
Elephants intertwine their trunks with one another as a way of saying hello and showing affection. They also caress their loved ones with their trunks when that loved one is stressed or unhappy.
In an elephant herd, everybody helps each other out and a new mom gets help from the younger females in her group, who help look after and teach the baby. The grandmothers also help look after their grand babies.
Elephants can certainly pick up 200-pound baby elephant with their trunks, or yank a stubborn branch of a tree, but they also have such micro-control over their trunks that they can pick up something tiny like a berry.
You’d expect such a large animal to make a lot of noise when it walked, but elephants actually have soft padding on the bottoms of their feet that serve as sort of shock absorbers, and allow them to move around almost silently.