You may have wondered how much do baby elephants weigh, then worry not because we’ve got you covered.
A baby elephant usually weighs around the size of an adult human child. Baby elephants weigh around 90-120 kg, depending on their breed.
Keep reading if you want to learn more about the baby elephants, their weight, and much more interesting facts about them!
How Much Do Baby Elephants Weigh?
A baby elephant is supposed to live in the womb of its mother for 22 months. After getting the nourishment, it comes out and has a weight equal to the weight of adult human children.
Asian baby elephants weigh about 91 kg, while African elephants weigh about 165 kg.
The weight of the female is 90-100 kg (198 – 221 lb.). On the other hand, adult males are heavier than females and weigh up to 120 kg (265 lb.).
How Much Do Baby Elephants Weigh At Birth?
A baby elephant is known as a calf, and it is around 1 m or 3 ft high, and it weighs around 120 kg (264 lb.) at birth.
It is probably among the biggest babies with shoulder height and beautiful beasts. A newborn African elephant is different from an Asian elephant in weight and size.
How Much Do Baby Elephants Weigh After 6 Months?
Generally, a baby elephant is about 100 kg exactly after 3 months of life. So 6-month old elephant calves, he becomes 200 kg.
There may be a variation in size or weight depending upon the sex of the calf. It is because the male calves heavier than the female calve. Dominant male elephants are also heavier than female elephants.
How Much Do Baby Elephants Weigh After A Year?
It depends upon the sex of the elephant. According to a general estimation, a baby elephant will put on an average weight of 0.9-1.40 kg (2-3 lbs) per day in its first year after birth.
And if we estimate accordingly, a one-year-old baby elephant’s body weight is 422-633 kg or 930-1395 lbs.
What Are The Predators Of Baby Elephants?
An elephant is usually considered a giant animal, and no other animal dares to attack it. The big tusk of the elephant works as a defensive weapon against predators.
However, a baby elephant is vulnerable to being attacked by lions, tigers, and hyenas if its mother is not present for nourishment and protection.
Mostly, they are not killed by other animals. It is because the group of elephants protects other baby elephants or any other weak one.
Tigers also hunt alone. So they need to be very lucky for hunting a baby elephant because other members are there for protection. After a baby elephant is killed, various other hunters eat them.
For example, if an elephant is killed by the big cats, then they are eaten by them first. And then other scavengers consume it.
In the end, many other decomposers, such as bacteria, will feed on it to add humus into the soil.
The elephant’s skin is thick enough that if a large animal has not opened first, others can’t decompose it.
How Do Orphan Baby Elephants Survive?
A baby elephant is unable to survive in the absence of its mother or any other elephant that can nourish or protect it from other predators.
Other animals will prey on the baby elephant, and then many predators will feed on its dead body for decomposition.
If you have rescued an orphan baby elephant from a forest or someplace, one of the best ways to protect it is to keep it in an orphanage setting of some sort of animal shelter.
You give attention to forest elephants, and the elephant handlers should be very careful about them.
There should be proper meal timing, and you need to feed him after a regular interval. Also, sleep with them in their enclosure.
They need to be very caring regarding elephants’ feed. Feed baby elephants a special milk formula every few hours when they are very young.
As birth elephants or Baby African Forest Elephants will grow up with time, you need to bring some necessary changes in the diet so that there should not be any bad impact on their health, as shown by the baby elephant records or analysis of elephant poaching in African elephant conservation groups.
What Do You Call A Baby Elephant?
A baby elephant is called a calf. Although there is little in common between elephants and cattle, baby elephants are called calves, just like you would call a baby cow.
The adult female is called a cow, and the juvenile is called a calf. Similarly, an adult female is called an elephant, and a juvenile is called a calf.
What Are The Closest Relatives Of Elephants?
Elephants, hyraxes, and sea cows such as dugongs and manatees are linked. Several genetic studies have been made to find their relationship with other animals.
It shows that the sea cow is closer to the elephants than the hyraxes.
The next closest group was aardvark, but recent studies show that Perissodactyla such as horses, tapirs, and rhinos are more closely related to the elephant.
There is a common ancestor between both of them that had been occupied that earth about 55 million years ago.
Do All Elephants Have Tusks?
Male elephants belonging to Asia have tusks, but in Africa, both male and female elephants have tusks.
However, there is hunting pressure on tusked animals, and the pressure is increasing day by day.
It is brought by poaching for ivory. The tuskless is an increasing feature in African elephants.
In humans, there are two types of teeth during the whole life span. One of them is rootless teeth.
They are also called milky teeth and shed once in life. After shedding rootless teeth, there appear rooted teeth that last forever for the rest of the life.
In the case of elephants, due to consumption of food in large quantities, they shed their teeth and do not regrow them two times but six times instead. These are the molars.
Tusk does not shed and are not used for food, so they continue to grow them in length for their whole life span.
How Do Elephants Use Their Tusks?
Elephant uses its tusk for digging the roots of the tree or for scratching the bark of the tree. Also, they are used for defense. During any attack, elephants show them as a strong weapon.
Can Baby Elephants Use Their Trunks?
An elephant trunk is an incredible organ. It is not about the nose only, but there are 40,000 muscles in them, and animals use it for breathing, drinking, and as a weapon also. It is a very complex organ, and the elephant needs time to get used to it. It is not shocking because, at our birth, we were also not used to our muscles. And then for a baby elephant, it is difficult to carry. Sometimes they wave them or even step onto them. As they grow up, they get used to it and then can cope with it easily. Now the animal trunk is of great importance for him, and also, they use it for defensive purposes.
Do Baby Elephants Suck Their Trunks?
There is a huge similarity between how a human nourishes his human babies and how an elephant mother takes care of an elephant baby.
In humans, baby sucks their thumb during early life. It is meant for a single purpose, and that is comfort.
The same strategy is used by the newborn elephant during the gestation period for comfort, but they suck their trunk.
Sucking the trunk reminds them of their mother, especially when the mother is not present and the baby is under the supervision of elephant handlers.
Facts About Elephants
There are many interesting facts about this largest land mammal. Following are the adorable baby elephant fact in African elephant species, wild elephants, or African savannah elephant
- The pregnancy duration of female Adult elephants or African Forest Elephants is the longest among all other animals. For a baby fetus to be developed completely, it needs to remain in the female womb for 18-22 months. This duration is about 2 years almost.
- At the time of birth, a baby elephant is of huge weight, which is about 210 lbs (or 95kg).
- Both African and Asian elephants are different in size. African elephants are smaller in size as compared to Asians. But still, the size is more than any other adult.
- The Elephant tusks are of great importance. It is among the beautiful creatures. It is used for various purposes. For example, the elephant can sense the shape, size, temperature, etc., of the object to whom it wants to sense.
- The eyesight of the Indian elephants, African bush elephants, or Asian elephant calf is not great, but they can sense incredibly with the help of the trunk.
- Due to the presence of the strong sense organ, Savanna elephants can sense water even from a distance of 12 miles away.
- This is why they drink 210 liters of water per day. They travel far away in search of water.
- For foraging, they spend almost 12 hours per day.
- They only sleep for 2-3 hours, so it shows their priorities among the whole animal kingdom.
- We have seen elephants can take mud baths. It is because their skin is very sensitive and being very caring about it, they use dust and mud for protection.
Where Do Elephants Live?
You will find them mostly in grasslands, savannas, and forests of West Africa or sub-Saharan Africa. They occupy a wide range of habitats, including highlands, deserts, and swamps, in tropical and subtropical regions of Africa and Asia.
How Many Types Of Elephants Are There?
There are generally two types of elephants that have been recognized. One of them is an African elephant, and the other is Asian. Both of them doffer each other remarkably in their shape, size, habitat, feed, etc.
How Long Do Elephants Live?
The total life span of the elephant is not prolonged. On average, they live up to 48 years. And typically Africans, live up to 60 years.
Conclusion – How Much Do Baby Elephants Weigh
We had a detailed discussion on the topic “how much do baby elephants weigh” and the whole life span of the elephant. An elephant is the largest land animal.
There are mainly two species of elephant. Generally, elephants live up to 48 years.
We name them differently, such as calves, etc., depending upon the developing stage of the growing elephant.
It is very difficult for the predators to hunt elephants because the whole group is very protective and defensive towards others.
An elephant calf is sometimes vulnerable to being attacked by the lions etc. Tigers need to be very lucky for hunting.
After hunting and scratching their skin, predators leave them, and then others decompose the remains of the body for adding humus into the soil.
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