Question: Can you tell me about elephants and species interactions?

It’s great to hear that you are learning about elephants and species interactions in school. As I’m sure you know, the African elephant is the largest living land mammal. Adult males are larger measuring up to 3.3m in height and weighing up to 7500kg, while females are smaller, growing up to about 2.6m and weighing about 3200 kg. Elephants typically live in matriarchal herds led by an old female and consisting primarily of related females. Males remain in herds until their teens and then are mostly solitary or found in bachelor groups. Elephants are mixed feeders consuming a variety of vegetation from grass to bark. A single elephant will consume between 100-200 kg of food every day and drink about 225 liters of water. To accommodate these large intake requirements, elephants spend about 75% of their time selecting, preparing, and eating food.

Elephants are widely distributed across the African continent, residing in 37 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. They occur in a variety of habitats from deserts to rainforests to swamps and often travel large distances in search of food, water, minerals, or because of disturbance. I do not know much about Mormyrid Bulldog Fish but elephant and giraffes often are found occupying the same habitat. I would not go so far as to say that elephants and giraffes spend time with each other, elephants do not often associate with other species, though different species may be found in the same areas if they share food resources. Some work in Kenya suggested that elephants lead to a shift away from woody vegetation, leading to a decline in many browser species, such as giraffe.