Author: Olivia Garcia

Olivia Garcia is originally from Texas. She fell in love with Elephants during a trip to Africa in the early 2010s, where she got to see these beautiful creatures up close. She spent a total of 6 months at the Desert Elephants Volunteer Project in Namibia, living amongst elephants.

Today, she lives with her husband and two kids in Texas. Olivia dreams about one day taking her kids to Africa to show them where she fell in love with elephants!

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Conservation efforts Elephants in the wild Questions & Answers (FAQs)

How Many Elephants Are Left in the World?

Big Elephant in Africa

While some African elephant populations are growing primarily in southern Africa, other areas are seeing decreasing populations. A lot of work has been done trying to determine the elephant population in the world, but it’s incredibly difficult to get accurate numbers. Experts can only guess at the total number of African elephants remaining.

One commonly accepted estimate is that there are about 400,000 African Elephants remaining, and between 50,000 and 100,000 Asian elephants left living in the wild.

The African Elephant population has dropped by 62% in the last decade and is expected to drop another 30% by 2025 making them an endangered species.

In fact, the elephant is labelled as “critically endangered” with WWF (World Wildlife Fund) and other organisations trying various conservation efforts to help stop the killing of these threatened species.

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Elephant behaviors Elephants in the wild Questions & Answers (FAQs)

Can Elephants Swim? Yes – And Surprisingly Well

Watch a three-ton elephant wade into a river and you’d be forgiven for expecting it to sink. It doesn’t. Elephants are among the strongest natural swimmers of any land mammal, and they’ve been crossing rivers, lakes, and even short stretches of open ocean for as long as they’ve existed.

Yes, elephants can swim. They’re buoyant, strong, and comfortable in water. They paddle with all four legs, use their trunk as a snorkel to breathe while mostly submerged, and can cover distances of up to 48 km (30 miles) in a single swim. Every species of elephant, from African bush elephants to Asian elephants, swims well from an early age.

This guide covers how elephants swim, how far they can go, why they swim, how they breathe underwater, whether baby elephants can swim, and the one myth about elephants not being able to swim that still refuses to die.

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Anatomy Questions & Answers (FAQs)

Do Elephant Tusks Grow Back? Everything You Need to Know

Male elephants with tusks fighting

Elephant tusks are one of the most recognizable features in the animal kingdom. They’re also one of the most misunderstood. Many people assume tusks are horns, that they grow back if broken, or that all elephants have them. None of these are quite right.

Elephant tusks are elongated upper incisor teeth, not horns. They grow continuously throughout an elephant’s life at roughly 17 cm (7 inches) per year. If a tusk breaks, it does not grow back – unlike rhino horns, which do regenerate. Not all elephants have tusks: most African elephants (male and female) do, while in Asian elephants only some males grow visible tusks.

This guide covers what tusks are made of, whether they grow back, how big they can get, why elephants need them, what’s happening with tuskless elephant populations, and what elephant tusks are worth – the question that sits behind the entire ivory poaching crisis.

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Visit elephants

Best Elephant Experience in the US: Sanctuaries and Zoos

Elephants at Fresno Zoo
Elephant area at Fresno Zoo. Photo by Daniel Jerez.

Seeing elephants in person is unforgettable. In the US, the options have changed significantly over the past decade – circuses with elephants have been phased out, elephant rides are no longer offered at zoos or theme parks, and the responsible options now fall into two clear buckets: accredited sanctuaries and AZA-accredited zoos with proper elephant habitats.

The best elephant experiences in the US are at accredited sanctuaries (The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, Performing Animal Welfare Society in California, Elephant Refuge North America in Georgia) and AZA-accredited zoos with large elephant habitats (San Diego Zoo, Smithsonian National Zoo, Oregon Zoo, Dallas Zoo, Columbus Zoo, among others). Most sanctuaries are not open for public visits, but many offer livestreams, virtual tours, and open-house days. Elephant rides are no longer offered anywhere in the US, and this is a good thing for elephant welfare.

This guide covers every major US sanctuary with elephants, the AZA zoos with the best elephant habitats, why elephant rides are no longer available (and shouldn’t be), and what ethical elephant viewing actually looks like in 2026.

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Anatomy Questions & Answers (FAQs)

How Many Bones Does An Elephant Have?

Indian Elephant skeleton in Manchester

Despite carrying the largest body of any land animal on Earth — up to 14,000 pounds of muscle, fat, and organs — an African elephant does it all on roughly 179 bones. That is fewer than the 206 bones found in an adult human skeleton. Yet those 179 bones support a living creature that can stand over 13 feet at the shoulder and walk dozens of miles in a single day. The engineering behind an elephant’s skeleton is one of the most remarkable achievements in vertebrate evolution.

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Anatomy Elephants in the wild Questions & Answers (FAQs)

Mammoth vs Elephant: Size, Differences & Key Facts

Steppe Mammoth at the Australian Museum. Photo by April Pethybridge.
Steppe Mammoth at the Australian Museum. Photo by April Pethybridge.

The Proboscidea is the superorder that includes elephants and mammoths, the Elephantidae. There are three families in this order: African Elephants, Asian Elephants, and Mammoths.

Only the elephant family is still around today. So, how big were mammoths compared to elephants?

The woolly mammoth was not as large as people originally thought. In fact, they were only the size of modern African elephants. A male’s shoulder height would range from 9 to 11 feet, weighing approximately 6 tons.

Though many people incorrectly believe otherwise, elephants and mammoths are not closely related–they are distant cousins. Both animals coexisted peacefully with humans for a very long time.

Although male elephants will have the occasional violent outburst over things such as territory and mating rights, they are usually gentle animals.

In this article, we’ll compare and contrast elephants with mammoths – looking at why the former have persisted while the latter have perished.

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Elephant safari Visit elephants

Where is the best place to see elephants?

Elephant herd on the road

Elephants are best seen in the wild. The best places to see elephants in Africa include: Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana and Uganda.

In Asia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand are all outstanding destinations for seeing elephants in their natural habitat.

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Anatomy Questions & Answers (FAQs)

Why do Elephants have a small tail?

Elephant's tail from behind

The elephant is the largest land mammal on the planet. Weighing in at two to six tons, they are taller than most other land mammals and can outrun most predators.

So why do these big animals have such a small tail?

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Elephant behaviors

Elephants proving they’re smart and we can’t ignore it

Two smart elephants bathing

Elephants really are smarter than we believe. There have been multiple studies done over the years on elephants to measure their IQ and cognitive behaviours, all of which have come to the same conclusion – they’re much smarter than we believe.

The results of the studies show that elephants and thereby also wild elephants are capable of thinking, planning and remembering, all at a level not seen in almost any other species.

They also display behaviours that indicate they’re self-aware – something only humans and our closest relatives (chimpanzees, dolphins and others) are known to do. By 2026, elephants are widely recognised by scientists as one of the few non-human animals with complex self-awareness. Read on to find out more!

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Questions & Answers (FAQs)

FAQ about Elephants

Elephant with swinging trunk in the wild

Here you’ll find some amazing answers to all your burning questions about this fantastic animal.

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