It?s time for everyone in Baltimore to learn what life is like for a female African elephant. Why, you ask? Because Dolly and Anna, the two African elephants at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, will be joined by three more female elephants next year.
In a nutshell, the life of a female African elephant seems to be about eating, socializing and raising babies.
Elephants are enormous.
African elephants stand 8 to 12 feet tall at the shoulder and weigh 6,000 to 12,000 pounds. Each tooth weighs about 8 pounds and measures a foot tall. Each ear measures up to 4 feet across. Each tusk can grow over 8 feet long and weigh more than 100 pounds!
To sustain such a massive body, an African elephant eats all day long. She?ll consume 150 to 400 pounds of food and drink about 50 gallons of water daily. That?s 15,000 gallons of water over the course of a year!
But she won?t do it alone. She?ll stay with her herd.
Every wild African elephant is born into an extended family led by an older matriarch and composed of female relatives and their offspring. Male elephants leave the herd when they reach puberty, but females stay for life.
Together, female relatives tend to each other?s babies, defend themselves, seek food and water, care for the sick and dying, grieve and comfort each other.
Elephants rarely forget each other. Even after years of separation, two elephants will recognize each other by sight, smell and voice.
In a nutshell, life may seem simple ? eating, socializing, raising babies ? but for a female African elephant, it is anything but!
Sarah Evans is part of the Education Department at the Maryland Zoo. For more information, please visit marylandzoo.org.
