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Thai researchers have succeeded in generating electricity from natural gas made from elephant dung.
Elephant facts and facts about elephants.
20 facts on this shelf
Thai researchers have succeeded in generating electricity from natural gas made from elephant dung.
Today, only three species of elephant remain and they are all threatened by hunting and habitat destruction.
Hippos are the third largest animal on land. Only elephants and some rhinos are bigger.
Elephants can't jump. Every other mammal can.
Elephants can't jump. Every other mammal can.
"Mudpuppies, also called waterdogs, are one of only a few salamanders that make noise. They get their name from the somewhat embellished notion that their squeaky vocalizations sound like a dog's bark."- national geographic
The African savanna elephant is the largest land animal on Earth, and big males can weigh around six tons.
There are three living elephant species: the African savanna elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant.
An elephant's trunk has tens of thousands of muscles and no bones, so it's strong enough to lift heavy logs and precise enough to pick up a single peanut.
Elephants have the longest pregnancy of any land mammal, about 22 months, so a mother elephant is pregnant for almost two years.
In a 2006 study, an Asian elephant named Happy at the Bronx Zoo recognized herself in a mirror. That puts elephants in a small club of animals that pass the mirror self-recognition test.
Elephants communicate with low rumbles called infrasound, which are too low for humans to hear and can travel for miles. They may even sense these vibrations through their feet.
Elephant herds are led by the oldest female, called the matriarch, whose memory of water sources and dangers can mean survival for the whole family.
The international trade in elephant ivory was banned under the CITES treaty in 1989 after poaching cut Africa's elephant population roughly in half during the 1980s.
Elephants have been observed lingering over and touching the bones of dead elephants, behavior that many scientists interpret as a form of mourning.
An adult elephant can eat a few hundred pounds of plants and drink up to around 50 gallons of water in a single day.
The first YouTube video, "Me at the zoo," was uploaded on April 23, 2005, by co-founder Jawed Karim and shows him at the San Diego Zoo talking about elephants for 18 seconds.
The manatee's closest living relatives are elephants.
Elephant garlic is more closely related to leeks than to regular garlic.
In 1884, P.T. Barnum led 21 elephants across the Brooklyn Bridge to prove it was safe.