You have been around the beautiful country Kenya and seen many alluring animals in their natural habitat, but have you ever dared to dig deep into getting to know interesting facts about these animals? If you have not, that is why Silverbird Travel Plus is here to feed you with information and today we will look at the Elephants.

Elephants are a huge part of popular culture and show up as metaphors across all media. They form a part of religious beliefs and are often associated with wisdom or altruism.

In spite of the African elephants being the largest land mammals on the planet, surprisingly their closest living relative is the rock hyrax, a small furry mammal that lives in rocky landscapes across sub-Saharan Africa and along the coast of the Arabian peninsula.  Additionally, they can be turned off by the smallest of creatures. One study actually found that they avoid eating a type of acacia tree that is home to ants. Elephants can obviously crush ants, but they completely avoid getting the ants inside their trunk which is full of sensitive nerve endings.You love peanuts? Well, elephants don’t.  They don’t eat them in the wild, and zoos don’t feed them to their captive elephants and while most people think that 9 months is a long time for gestation, you have no idea! Female elephants undergo the longest pregnancy of 22 months!

 

Funnyenough elephants have passed the mirror test, they recognize themselves in a mirror and they can get sunburned, so they take care to protect themselves. Elephants will throw sand on their backs and on their head. They do that to keep them from getting sunburned and to keep bugs off. To protect their young, adult elephants will drench them in sand and stand over the little ones as they sleep, talking of a mother’s love.

Stories of African elephants getting drunk from the fermented fruit of the marula tree are not true, a studyconcluded. The animals don’t eat the fruit off the ground where it ferments, the fresh fruit doesn’t stay in the elephant’s digestive tract long enough to ferment, and even if an elephant did eat the fermented fruit, it would take 1,400 pieces to get one drunk.

Since sometimes elephants have a tendency of destroying crops, some farmers in Kenya protect their fields by lining the borders with beehives. Not only are their crops saved, but the farmers also get additional income from the honey.

 

For more interesting facts about other animals, log into our website and get amazed by facts you didn’t know!