The elephants are herbivorous mammals belonging to the Proboscidates order, that were very common in the world in the Quaternary and Tertiary geological ages, but today limited to 2 species; the AFRICAN and the INDIAN elephant, the last, living in India and in Indochina, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

The elephants live in the savanna and also in the Kalahari desert in Africa and into the forests in Asia (where most of the living elephants are bred by humans for work purposes).

They are up to 4 m high and weigh up to 6-7 tons, but the Indian species is smaller, with more reduced ears and tusks

They always live in groups that, today, can count some tens of individuals but that, only 100-150 years ago, could be formed by spectacular "armies" of hundreds or thousands of individuals, before the massacres made by the chase for selling the ivory of their long tusks (up to 2 m) carried them close to the extinction, living only in some insulated National Parks and private reserves.

Today, the chase to elephant and the commerce of ivory are forbidden, despite some economic pressures to open again the massacre and their number is slowly increasing, but the many millions once living in Africa are only a far memory.

The groups are lead by an elderly females that put their experience at the service of the others, to decide where to go to look for water and the herbs, leaves and tree cortex they like.
Given that the nutritional value of this food is scarce, the elephants must eat many hundreds of Kg everyday for their needs.
They have an great capacity to feel the presence of water during the dry periods or in deserts; maybe they feel its smell, as we could never do.

The females, after a pregnancy of 22-23 months (record!) can have only one puppy that can weight "only" 80-100 Kg at its birth and
sucks the milk from her mother tits not with its trunk, that it's not still able to use, but directly by its mouth.
Just the trunk is the great resource of the elephant; its nose and its arm and its defensive weapon.

Elephants are famous for the delicate use they are able to do with the extremity of their trunk, very sensible an precise, able to pick up a single cherry from a basket.
They also use it, to protect their thick but sensible skin from insects, by covering themselves of dust (by means of their trunk) or with the mud they find in rivers or pools.
Also for this, elephants love to have a bath everyday (or as possible), like the British love to have

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