Wednesday

Of mice and elephants


Elephants are afraid of mice...you've heard that before.  It's a cute idea in stories, but not true!


Adult elephants actually fear nothing. No other animal dares bother them...and you can probably guess why:

  • Elephants are the largest land animals
  • They travel in family herds 
  • They are very intelligent
  • And they have tusks!

The largest elephant ever was 13 feet high...that's three feet higher than the average ceiling! And guess which type of elephant that was? The largest of the large...the African bush elephant!


Here are the keys to identifying a bush elephant:


1st IK*:  Curved white tusks; both males and females have them


2nd IK:  Large ears; each as large as the head


3rd IK:  Concave or "sway" back



Next post, we'll take a look at the forest elephant and discover the differences between both types of African elephant!



*Identification Key, or IKs, are characteristics used to identify an animal. (More about identification keys here.)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Knew that was a myth.....I think.

I Spy Animals said...

I think of that movie Dumbo...the elephants were afraid of the little mouse with the hat. ha ha