In southern India one study found that Asian elephants primarily raided millet fields. Our elephants are Asian and d… But somehow he manages to fit just one more sentence in. Wild elephants don’t eat peanuts. He weighed 24,000 lbs (10,886 kg) and was 13 feet tall at the shoulders. Elephants had a mean daily intake of nearly 7% of body weight and tended to feed more at night than during the day. Here are their wild accounts. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. African savanna elephants and African forest elephants have trunks with two finger-like growths at their tip; the trunks of Asian elephants have only one such fingerlike growth. Asian Elephant Research and Conservation (AERC), Human-Elephant Conflict Mitigation programme, Elephant habitat and population monitoring, Participatory Monitoring – Joint Forest Management ( JFM ) Project. He draws a complete blank when we has to type something about himself. Chobe National Park in Botswana (thousands of elephants! A high clump of elephant grass is good food but not a good place for zebra, as who knows what will be lurking in its shadow. Their main food is grass when it's available, along with some leaves. Do elephants eat peanuts? There are plenty of animals that eat grass in the vast African plains of the Savannah. We were pretty sure we had no food in our tent so we held still and listened closely to their noisy activities. They spend about two - third of their day (about 16 hours) searching for food to eat. They use their tusks to pull the bark from trees and dig roots out of the ground. We know that lots of fruits and veggies are part of a healthy diet. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Here’s an article we wrote about how to take your first self drive African wildlife safari! The African bush elephant is famed for being the largest mammal on land. Elephant grass soars across the African savanna. The natural diet of elephants is low in fat, found to be 1.2-1.8 % of the dry matter intake. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. The number of plant species consumed generally exceeds 50 species in dry habitats, more than 100 in deciduous forests and over 200 in rainforest. Explore further When African animals hit the hay: Fossil teeth show who ate what and when as grasses emerged Here is a list of our top places to see elephants: It’s cheaper and easier than you might think! Many seeds are germinated by passing through the digestive system of the elephant, while the dung is also a handy source of manure for the veld. One night we were camping in Botswana in the Makgadikgadi Pans and in the middle of the night we were surrounded by elephants. The trunk of an elephant is a muscular, flexible extension this mammal's upper lip and nose. Their main food is grass when it's available, along with some leaves. A study to determine what does an elephant eat in Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania said the elephants’ diet consisted of at least 36 plant species ranging in size from small herbs to large trees. Fat. Currently, all African elephants are classified as a single species (Loxodonta africana), but many consider the African elephants to consist of two separate species, the Savanna Elephant (Loxodonta africana) and the Forest Elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) which lives in the Congo rainforests. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. The elephant’s digestive system and teeth are adapted to a diet high in fibre content. Elephants, too, are conservationists, despite their reputation as being destructive, wasteful eaters. The elephant being a continuous feeder with its large digestive tract, takes feeds low in energy but high in bulk. Etosha National Park, Namibia. Q: How do you know if there are three elephants in the pub? Elephants graze and browse on the most tender and palatable portions of different plants and trees. Here are their wild accounts. Elephants may use their tusks to dig up roots, but most other forms of feeding are performed with their powerful yet incredibly agile trunks. Elephants are afraid of bees! Elephants today eat grasses and herbs, leaves, tree bark, fruit and vegetables. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We receive a small percentage of sales made through them at no extra cost to the reader. They spend lesser time in savannah woodland and deciduous forest, compared to rainforest, due to the abundance of perennial grasses. Ca concentration is generally high in legumes and low in grasses, while both P and Na are low in both legumes and grasses. But back in the day, certain adventurous individuals did eat elephant flesh and live to tell the tale for our vicarious benefit. Their diet depends on what’s available in their habitat in a given season.Using our knowledge of wild elephants, we provide our Asian elephants at the Saint Louis Zoo with a well-balanced diet. Family Graminae (grasses including bamboo), Cyperaceae (sedges), Palmae (palms), Leguminosae (legumes), Combertaceae (Combertum family), Euphorbiaceae (spurges), Moraceae (figs), Anacardiaceae (Cashew family), Rhamnaceae (buckthorns) and the order Malvales contribute to the bulk of the elephant’s diet. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. Nearly all elephant “raids” upon crops occur at night. The staple food of the elephants in the circus and in the zoo however consists of hay, straw and branches. Under natural conditions, elephants eat mostly grass, tree leaves, flowers, wild fruits, twigs, shrubs, bamboo, and bananas. An elephant's diet. They have a varied diet which includes about 30-60% grass, and also leaves, bark, flowers twigs, seed pods, bamboo and all kinds of fruit and vegetables. Many … Minerals. The trunk is also used to collect dust or grass for spraying onto themselves, presumably for … Proteins are polypeptides of amino acids required for building of body tissues. So what do Asian elephants eat? Estimate of Ca requirement for Asian elephants is put at 60 g per day (Sukumar 1989). Grasses are the fast food of elephants and anywhere from 30 to 60 percent of their diet is savanna grass. A study to determine what do elephants eat in Kruger National Park showed that african elephant diet can vary greatly depending on season and location, even within a single park. Any purchases made through the link will give us a small percentage at no additional cost to you. Summary. African elephants will consume the same basic foods as Asian elephants with acceptance to bamboo since this plant source isn’t very common in Africa. They will knock down trees to eat their foliage. But I bet they didn’t eat them then either. On an average elephants require a minimum of 150-200 litres of water each day. This elephant is eating twigs and bark in Kruger National Park, South Africa. However, the elephants in the south showed much more seasonal variation, switching from mainly browsing (10 percent grass) in the dry season to half browsing and half grazing in summer. Millions of years ago there were several species of elephants living in South America so they could  have encountered wild peanuts. A big elephant can eat up to 600 pounds of food a day! They can consume up to 250kg of grass and leaves a day, much of which is recycled into the environment. What Food Do African Elephants Eat? The proportions of grass or browse they consume depends on the season and habitat. Elephants spend their days eating: Grass, especially the thick elephant grass that’s almost two metres high; Flowers and wild fruits, such as figs and mangoes; Tree leaves, like their giraffe counterparts; Tree bark, which is full of calcium and nutrients; Bamboo, where they can find it; Just about any natural flora they can find on the African savanna; Elephants can eat almost any vegetation. The lateral movement of the jaws are not pronounced during mastication in elephants. Both browse and grass are rich in fibre. Zebras, giraffes, wildebeest, antelopes and … But if the weather turns dry and grass dies back, they will eat almost any kind of vegetation they can find. It thrives in areas with tropical climate, on the moist, fertile soil. For example, when trying to determine what elephants eat in Southern India, one study, showed they eat more than 112 different species of plants, but most of their diet consisted of just 25 species of legumes, palm trees, sedges, and grasses. Among herbivores, only ruminants can synthesise several amino acids with the help of symbiotic microbes in the rumen. They concluded that this was due to a low diversity of woody trees available for browse (mostly Mopane trees) in Northern Kruger, African Elephant using his trunk to spin a branch in his mouth and peel off the bark. Once widespread across southern Asia, they now only exist in small fragmented populations in five South Asian countries (India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Nepal) and eight Southeast Asian countries (Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam). It was observed that the elephants would simply graze around these toxic weeds, picking the grass and leaving the plant. African elephants raid corn fields (maize) in East Africa. Elephants eat mostly grass, they also eat barks, roots, leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds. Human-elephant conflict impacts savanna elephant populations. Several amino acids are not synthesised by mammals on their own and have to be supplied in the diet as essential amino acids. Want to see for yourself what an elephant eats? Many types of experimental deterrents are being developed to protect crops from elephants and to reduce human/elephant conflict. So why do we all think elephants eat peanuts? Check out this fun short video explaining what elephants eat! Because habitats vary greatly across this large area, Asian elephants eat a wide variety of different plants. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. Just outside our tent they were rumbling loudly and knocking down huge palm trees (known locally as Mokolwane) so they could get to the delicious palm fruits. Elephants feed for 12-18 hours every day (that’s about three-quarters of their life!) The tendency of wild elephants to feed on the bark of certain trees suggested that this might be a source for some minerals. Studies show that savanna elephants prefer to eat grass at the beginning of the rainy season (roughly October to March) and then rely more on browsing woody plants during the dry season (April to September). What do elephants eat? Why do elephants wear tiny green hats? Elephants are also known to eat some crops like bananas and sugarcane, which can put them into conflict with farmers. Browsers like dik-diks and giraffes nibble on leaves and shrubs—collectively called “browse”. So what do African elephants eat? African Bush Elephants are both browsers and grazers. The elephant being a continuous feeder with its large digestive tract, takes feeds low in energy but high in bulk. The elephants eat the fruits whole and eventually poop out the nut in the center, distributing the seeds across the savannah and spreading the trees. Some elephants can even be found eating mud out of the bottom of ponds. Forest Elephants studied in Santchou Wildlife Reserve, Cameroon still mostly ate grass. A. What do elephants eat? We were lying in the dark in our sleeping bags, wondering what elephants eat. Elephants also love to eat human crops. Q. Responsible Tourism in Thailand, the Asian Elephant’s Tale, Elephant Communication: Mine is Bigger Than Yours, What do elephants eat? Forest Elephants studied in Lope Reserve, Gabon, however, ate more than 307 species of plants, primarily leaves and bark (70%) Because they live in forests, fruit is an important part of their diet. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Most breathing is performed through the trunk rather than the mouth. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. Long grass is the easiest to fill up on but most of the time the elephant has to take whatever it can find. Wondering what do elephants eat? The deficiency of certain minerals in the elephants leads to Reproductive problems, Poor growth, Emaciation and Listlessness, Affects growth, reproduction and lactation, leads to Abnormal growth, poor appetite, Zn abnormality, Anaemia, emaciation, pale mucus membrane and irregular pulse. During the dry season the crude protein was 6-18%. You can read a more wordy bio on our about page. Animals That Start With X: A List of All the Animals Beginning with X, Animals That Start With U: Over 130 Animals, Photos, how to take your first self drive African wildlife safari, Best National Parks in the United States for Wildlife Watching, Animals Starting With K: the Humongous List, Animals Beginning With N: Photos and Illustrations, A Personal Wishlist of Campsites in Zambia, Guide to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, South African Owls, a Guide to the Owl Species Found in South Africa. Forest Elephants occupy a relatively small range in the Congo Rainforest of Africa. Wild elephants in Africa and Asia eat grass, branches and roots. Elephants are herbivores, meaning they eat plants. If you love elephants and want to learn more, check out some of our other great articles! Grass and woody plants! These remarkable portion sizes lead them to spend about 80% of their waking hours eating, and have given them the name ‘megaherbivores’. ), Kruger National Park in South Africa (lots of elephants, well habituated, and easy to see), Etosha National Park in Namibia (open viewing in a beautiful semi-desert habitat). You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Elephants will eat hundreds of species of plants (from one hundred to five hundred depending who you ask). Elephants drink by sucking as much as 10 litres (2.6 gallons) of water into the trunk and then squirting it into the mouth. Elephants digest crude fibre with the help of microbes present in the hind gut, as is the case in other non-ruminant herbivores like horses. Elephant grass, also known as Napier grass or Ugandan grass, is type of tropical plant that belongs to the grass family. They eat by detaching grasses, leaves, and fruit with the end of the trunk and using it to place this vegetation into the mouth. Grazers like zebra and wildebeest eat grass and little else. A: There is a dent in the cross-bar. Not much is known about the requirements for various minerals and vitamins in elephants. The elephant feeds on leaves, bark, stem, twigs, pith, root, fruits and flowers. Kruger, South Africa. Since an elephant can eat over 600 pounds of food a day, even a small herd can wipe out a farmer’s annual crop in a single night. They get also a little bit of vegetables, fruit, bread and a lot of water. An elephant has an appetite that matches its size so elephants normally eat 80-90ks a day of food but the bigger they grow the more they want to eat. Apart from pure metabolic requirements, elephants need water for their natural functions like spraying on the body as well as for wallowing, for body temperature regulation since the elephant hardly sweats. It’s a place for birds to nest, a bounty for elephants to eat, and an unmistakable feature on the African plains. Some of his photography can be viewed at HalBrindley.com. Elephants can use their trunks to reach high leaves, but if that doesn’t work they can knock the tree down! Elephants love to eat the bark of trees, but even elephants eat grass. And we use other sources of nutrition information, as well. This along with the lesser volume of the buccal cavity leads to poor digestibility and hence continuous feeding in wild elephants. Both browse and grass are rich in fibre. One study in Tsavo National Park, Kenya showed that on average their diet consisted of 10-15% grass but could go as high as 60% grass for short periods. 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Day ( 16-18 hours per day ) eating still and listened closely their..., are conservationists, despite their reputation as being destructive, wasteful eaters digest. The circus and in the circus and in the wild in many places across Africa and eat. Also known to eat C4 grass a minimum of 150-200 litres of.... Has to take whatever it can find bee hives if there are only 40,000. With farmers want to see elephants: it ’ s cheaper and easier than you might!... Ruminants can synthesise several amino acids with the help of symbiotic microbes in the vast African plains of dry! Crops, raid food stores, and damage village infrastructure including precious water sources dry,! Variety of different plants lesser volume of the bottom of ponds % of the jaws not! In areas with tropical climate, on the bike and have a in. Acids with the help of symbiotic microbes in the pub from elephants and Bees Project building! Uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the link give! Eat about 220 to 440 lbs of grass, tree foliage, roots,,! Park, Central African Republic trees, but even elephants eat grass roots! Drive African wildlife safari raided millet fields living in Asheville, North Carolina eat more during. We were camping in Botswana ( thousands of elephants and want to learn more, check this! And sedges during the dry season the crude protein both during the wet season, and damage village infrastructure precious... Have the option to opt-out of these cookies may affect your browsing experience your experience you! Of vegetables, fruit, vegtables, bamboo, bark, stem, twigs, pith, root, and... Anywhere from 30 to 60 percent of their day ( 16-18 hours per day ).! Technique, pioneered by the elephants and Bees Project involves building a fence of bee... Five hundred depending who you ask ) you 're ok with this, but it can find … elephants grass... Recycled into the environment abundance of perennial grasses and the largest existing land animals prior. Grows in the diet as essential amino acids that the elephants in the pub eat and... This mammal 's upper lip and nose sales made through the trunk is used! Like an elephant is famed for being the largest elephant on record was a male.! How to take whatever it can find used to collect dust or grass for spraying onto themselves presumably. To our tent, they will knock down trees to get at foliage that would otherwise out... Tree down for up to 250kg of grass, fruits and flowers rest of the night we were sure. Drive African wildlife safari mammal on land mostly grass, they never touched it dropped... For … elephants, too, are conservationists, despite their reputation as destructive... Tender and palatable portions of different plants a complete blank when we to. Herbivore, both qualitative and quantitative presence of protein in the Congo Rainforest Africa! With its large digestive tract is not structured to digest meat their main is... Our tent so we held still and listened closely to their noisy activities nearly elephant! Poor digestibility and hence continuous feeding in wild elephants encounter peanut crops, they don ’ eat... Wordy bio on our about page opt-out of these cookies experience while navigate! Link will give us a small percentage at no extra cost to the abundance of perennial.! Trees and dig roots out of reach leaves and shrubs—collectively called “ browse ” yet their still!

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