Things About Elephants
The elephant trunk serves many purposes and one of them is drinking. Welcome to the home of elephants enthusiasts! We aim to publish insightful and interesting facts about elephants and how to see them in their natural habitat. Read our about us page to understand our mission and who's contributing to this website. Olivia Garcia is originally from Texas.
Calves will suck water into their trunks and spray each other playfully. Elephants also love to cool themselves by having a mud bath. They will scoop wet soil from the bottom of a lake or the river and spray it on to their body to get respite from heat. Despite being that heavy, elephants can swim. Actually, all species of elephants are great swimmers.
With both of these examples at hand, it’s hard to say anything else other than that elephants are able to swim long distances. The elephants four legs are used to propel them through the water. Their legs are so powerful that they can swim continuously for as long as six hours! An elephant’s head and torso are generally kept just below the surface of the water as it paddles its massive limbs back and forth on a typical swim. Elephants use their trunk as a snorkel while swimming.
However, African and Asian elephants are some of the few mammals that have learned how to swim. When male elephants leave the herd between the ages of 12-15, female elephants form their own groups led by a matriarch. In these herds, they form a hierarchy based on age and generational knowledge of safe and verdant spaces for food and water. These herds form tight social bonds that elicit strong emotions like grief and distress within members when their family members are injured or threatened. Elephants have even been observed mourning unfamiliar dead by stroking carcasses they pass in the wild. Elephants can swim for long distances.
Jonathan’s excellence in photography is rivaled by his love for teaching. Jonathan has also produced an instructional DVD on Photoshop and an online training series on Lightroom. When not working, Jonathan likes to spend his time rock climbing, surfing and snowboarding. Jonathan has been diving since 2000 and considers documenting the underwater world one of the greatest privileges in his life. A newborn elephant calf trunk has no muscle tone. This means that it will have to suckle through its mouth.
Here’s a video we took in Chobe National Park of a snorkeling elephant and elephants eating soil. Elephant in mustClose-up of fluid behind elephant’s eye– In some parks and reserves, drivers are encouraged not to drive over elephant dung. Because it provides a habitat for insects and beetles. Elephants eating soil– We learned that elephants will “mock charge.” When you hear an elephant trumpet, it’s often a challenge. Our guide in Chobe told us that if an elephant trumpets at you, you should stand your ground.
No, because the buoyant force on the elephant would be the same in both cases. Two of a herd of bachelor elephants swimming across the Chobe River towards Sedudu/ northern Botswana, using their trunks as snorkels. From the image capture details, it looks like he took around 5 minutes to elephant taking bath swim across the lake. It is quite a big lake and this timing looks very impressive.
I hope you understand the solution. Elephants love water and are great divers. You will often see an elephant sticking its trunk up for breath and disappearing under water for a considerable amount of time. Baby elephants enjoy playing in water. They will often try to climb on the backs of older and bigger elephants and then splash back in the water.
Granted, elephants aren’t very deep divers, though they can hold their breath for a few minutes or so in dire circumstances. They strongly prefer to keep their trunks above water as much as possible, and they don’t have much of a reason to swim deep underwater anyway. So, although they can technically swim with their bodies completely underwater, elephants tend to stay at depths of only a foot or two underwater. Swimming is a surprising pastime for many elephants, especially among babies and juveniles!