22nd September: Elephant Appreciation Day

Elephant Appreciation Day was founded by Wayne Hepburn, after he received a paperweight of elephants on parade as a gift and became fascinated by them. 10 fascinating facts about elephants.

1. Baby elephants suck their trunks for comfort in the same way that humans suck their thumbs.
2. Colonel Hathi, the elephant in The Jungle Book is so named because Hathi is the Hindi word for elephant.
3. Elephants use sunscreen. They bathe in mud, then blow dust onto the wet mud with their trunks. This dries to form a protective crust which protects them from the Sun.
4. Elephants' teeth are replaced as many as six or seven times during their lives. When the last set of teeth wears out, they can no longer eat. A solitary elephant would starve, but elephants in groups will help a toothless elephant to feed.
5. For a long time, only two living species of elephant were recognised - the Indian and the African. Since 2010, scientists have recognised that there are two different species in Africa - the Savannah Elephant and the Forest Elephant.
6. Elephants are right- or left-tusked. Like handedness in humans, elephants show a preference for one side - wild elephants' tusks are usually more worn on one side than the other. Individuals have also been observed to show a preference as to which way they rotate their trunks when performing tasks.
7. Humans have trained elephants to kill. The elephants Hannibal took over the Alps were his war elephants, trained to pick up enemies and throw them, or impale them on the ground using their tusks (which would have been fitted with sharp metal points for the purpose). In some parts of India, a common method of capital punishment was execution by elephant. The animals were trained to either kill the condemned person quickly, or to torture them first. The method was popular with kings, because it demonstrated their power over wild animals as well as people.
8. Elephants have a religious significance to many peoples. The Mbuti believe that the souls of their dead ancestors live on in elephants. In Hinduism, they represent lightning and rainbows, as well as the elephant headed god Ganesha being one of the most revered deities. Ganesha is associated with writers and merchants and it is believed that he can give people success as well as grant them their desires. In Buddhism, Buddha is said to have been a white elephant reincarnated as a human. The Prophet Muhammad was born in the year of the elephant. The Romans believed that elephants had a religion of their own and worshipped the sun and the stars.
9. Elephants can recognise themselves in a mirror, and they use tools. They have been observed using branches as fly swatters and piling up blocks to reach food.
10. Elephants are very sociable animals, at least, the females are. They live together in family groups with their calves, and the group stays together for life, although once male calves reach puberty they are encouraged to leave, and male elephants tend to be solitary once they grow up. These social groups sometimes cluster together and form a larger clan. Each family group is led by a matriarch, often the oldest female, although when she dies it will be her daughter which takes over rather than her sister or whichever remaining elephant is the oldest. The death of the matriarch has been shown to cause increased production of stress hormones of other group members in zoo elephants.