Questions and Answers

Questions submitted by visitors to AfricanElephants.com, and answers provided by our african elephant expert Tim.

• Interview of African Elephants Expert Tim
• What are the different types of African Elephants?
• Can you tell me about elephants and species interactions?
• What is the classification of the African Elephant?
• What are some of the most common types of plants and animals found in African Elephant ecosystems?
• Can African Elephants have twins?
• What do African Elephants use their big ears for?
• How do African Elephants use their tails?
• Is it fun working with elephants and do African elephants have a hole in their brain?
• How do you scare away elephants that are causing problems?
• How many African Elephants are living today?
• Are some African Elephants domesticated?

More questions and answers:

Question: How does the African elephant interact with people?

Answer: African elephants interact with people in a variety of ways. Elephants are a well known, charismatic species and many people go to Africa each year on safaris to see elephants. Because of this, elephants can be an important source of money for African countries and local communities. Some countries, such as Tanzania South Africa, and Botswana, allow hunting of elephants where tourists pay thousands of dollars for the chance to hunt an elephant. This also is a source of money, and sometimes meat, for local people and governments. This is controversial, however, and some countries, such as Kenya, do not allow hunting of wildlife.

Elephants can also cause problems for people. Human-elephant conflict is increasing in many areas, especially as the human population grows and people move into elephant habitat. Crop raiding occurs when elephants eat agricultural crops and is one of the most common forms of human-elephant conflict. Elephants have very big appetites, consuming hundreds of kilograms of plants a day. One herd of elephants can eat a farmer’s fields in a single night. Elephants have also been known to chase or kill livestock and even to kill people, especially along roads at night when people come upon groups of elephants suddenly.

A number of measures have been taken to reduce human-elephant conflict, such as planting chili peppers in fields to deter elephants. New measures are being tried all the time, such as using the sound of bees to scare away elephants. Hopefully these methods will allow people and elephants to live near each other without having conflict.

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Question: What is an African elephant's body temperature?

Answer: While temperatures of individuals will vary, studies of elephants have found that, on average, elephants have a body temperature a little lower than humans at about 97.6 F (36.5 C).

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Question: What is the daily life of an elephant like?

Answer: The daily life of an African elephant is a lot like yours, consisting of sleeping, eating, drinking, playing, and traveling. What is different, however, is how much time elephants spend doing each of these things. Elephants have very big appetites, eating as much as 440 lbs (200 kg) of plants in a single day! To meet this need, elephants spend about 75% of their time, both day and night, finding and eating food.

Elephants also need a lot of water and, if they live in very dry areas, may have to travel each day to get it. In the area of Botswana in southern Africa where I work, elephants come down to the river every afternoon to drink.

When they are not eating or drinking, elephants may interact with each other, playing and communicating. This is especially common with young elephants.

Elephants only sleep a few hours each day, once in the early morning before dawn, and again during the hottest part of the day, usually resting in the shade.

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Question: What do elephants eat?

Answer: Elephants are herbivores, which means that they eat plants. African elephants have very big appetites and eat about 220-440 lbs (100-200 kg) of vegetation each day! They will eat many different types of plants, depending on what is available during different times of year, what the elephant likes, and how long it takes to prepare and consume the food. Grass is the easiest to eat and may make up more than half of an elephant’s diet when it is available, but they will also eat leaves, and even bark, which they pull off of trees using their tusks and trunk.

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Question: Why is the skin on elephants so weird looking?

Answer: Elephants have wrinkly skin to help them keep cool. It is very hot in many places where African elephants live and part of the way they keep cool is with their skin. When an elephant takes a bath, water gets trapped in the wrinkles of its skin, this lets makes it evaporate more slowly, cooling the elephant over a longer period of time. Wrinkled skin acts like a personal air conditioning system for elephants.

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Question: How do elephants communicate? How do they eat?

Answer: Elephants communicate in a variety of ways. They make sounds such as
trumpeting and low growls and also make subsonic noises that are too low for any person to hear but which can travel through the ground to be heard many miles away. Elephants also will communicate through touch, sort of like people do through handshakes and hugs. They might touch other elephants with their trunks or just rub up against the others in their herd. Baby elephants can often be seen doing this with their mothers. Finally, elephants communicate through body posture. A number of things, including how they are standing and how they hold their trunk and ears, all let other animals know how they are feeling.

Elephants eat just like you and me, with their mouth! They do not have hands, however, and use their trunk to pick up food items off the ground or to pull leaves or bark from trees. They also use their trunk like a big hose, sucking up water and then squirting it into their mouth to drink. Elephants eat and drink a lot. A single elephant will consume between 100-200 kg (220-440 lbs) of food every day and drink about 225 liters (59 gallons) of water. To meet these needs, elephants spend about 75% of their time finding and eating food.

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Question: I am a student at Kruger elementry. I am researching African elephants. I am supposed to ask an elephant expert about these magnificent creatures. Can you help me? Can you tell me one thing that people might not know about the African Elephant and one thing that you and other scientist disagree on, And most of all, what do you think about them beginning to go endangered?                

Answer: I’m glad to hear about your interest in elephants. Hopefully I can help you out.

One thing people might not know about elephants is that even though they are very big, they might be scared of little bees. As I’m sure you know elephants sometimes will come into people’s fields and eat their crops. Scientists trying to prevent this found that in some areas, recording the sound of angry bees and playing it back will keep elephants away. More research is needed but this might be a good way to help reduce problems between people and elephants.

One thing scientists disagree on is how many kinds of elephants there are in Africa. The elephants you see in South Africa are known as savanna or bush elephants. They are common across southern and East Africa. In Central and West Africa, however, the elephants are different. They tend to be smaller with straighter tusks, smaller ears, and more toenails on their feet. These are usually called forest elephants. Scientists disagree on whether forest and elephants are just two different types of one species, called subspecies, or whether they are actually two distinct species. Some scientists even think there is a third species of elephant that lives in both forests and savannas in West Africa but there is not enough information about animals from these areas to be sure.

I’m not entirely sure what you mean when you ask what I think about elephants beginning to go endangered. Elephant numbers did decline very rapidly in the late 1900s because of poaching. I am strongly opposed to wildlife poaching and think elephants should definitely be protected from extinction. While poaching is still a serious threat in some areas, others have seen better protection leading to increases in the number of elephants. Southern Africa especially, has seen increases in elephant numbers in many areas. For example, Botswana, where I do my research, has a strong and growing elephant population. In fact, some people wonder if there are too many elephants and if they might start having negative effects on the trees and wildlife of southern Africa.

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Question: Why do elephants use thier trunks to greet each other?

Answer: Do you ever wave or shake someone’s hand when you greet them? Elephants do not have hands and so use their trunks for many of the actions you would use a hand for. For example, when elephants who know each other meet they might touch trunks or even entwine their trunks together. Trunks also play an important role in smell and moving trunks close together in greeting may be partially to smell each other to gain information that way. This may seem a little funny to a human because we do not communicate much through smell but elephants use smell to learn many things about their surroundings.