In this blog,
I share with you some of my best wildlife pictures of the mighty African Elephant and detail some interesting facts and information that you might want to know about these amazing animals. All these pictures were taken by me in Kenya this summer, Enjoy!
Make sure to comment which photo was your favorite and follow to make sure you don't miss the next installments in this series!
The African elephant is the world's largest land mammal weighing up to 6000 kg and dominating many African savannah plains with their incredible size and beautiful white tusks (which both male and female elephants possess).
Elephants live in large herds which used to often number in the hundreds, sadly increased levels of poaching for Ivory in Africa over the past century has meant that herds of this size are rarely seen anymore. Within the herd though, the leader is the Matriarch who is usually the oldest female of the group and the one who controls the herd.
While Elephants are incredibly beautiful animals, they are also extremely dangerous and one of the most deadly animals on the planet. This is often due to their protective nature over their young and also their fear of people as a result of all the poaching.
As a male Elephants reaches puberty, he will often leave the herd and become a socially independent roamer. So if you ever see a large Elephant wondering the Savannah by itself, it is most likely a male (if you're still not sure though, you can usually make sure by checking if he has a fifth leg 😉 ).
Finally, the famous trunk of the Elephant is actually their nose, but is also essential to them to drink and eat. For drinking, the Elephant sucks large quantities of water up its trunk, then brings the end of its trunk to its mouth and pushes the water down its throat. Meanwhile, to eat, Elephants will use their powerful trunk to tear grass off the ground or leaves from their tree which they then bring up to their mouths to consume!
The photo below is one of my favorite wildlife photos, I really love the colors of the greens juxtaposed with the golden light shinning on the Elephant. I put this picture here at the bottom as a thank you to all of you who read this far!
I hope you enjoyed this blog and maybe learnt some new interesting facts :)
Make sure to comment if you have any questions about the photos or Elephants in general, and follow to make sure you don't miss out on these daily blogs!
Until next time,
Tristan
If you liked this, you will surely enjoy my last photo blog detailing the top 5 facts about the Alpacas of Peru:
https://steemit.com/travel/@tristanoliff/the-alpacas-of-peru-top-5-facts-and-photo-series
Read about my story and mission here:
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@tristanoliff/this-is-me-and-this-is-what-i-m-going-to-do-introducing-tristan