How do elephants mate?
Male elephants actually have prehensile penis,
so with great difficulty, is probably a good answer to that question.
Hello. Hello. So what do you think you're here to do today then?
To answer the internet's most searched questions about elephants?
Why do elephants have trunks?
It's a good question. Elephants have trunks
to allow them to feed from the ground properly and also to feed from up high.
It's a really good snorkel as well for when they're swimming,and they use it a lot for communication with each other as well touching around their
faces and because the trunk is made of many, many different muscle fibres.
So we need to make sure that they exercise their trunk nice and well, So we give them lots of food up high that they can
use those muscles to reach.
Can elephants cry?
Oh, that's a really good question.
I don't think they can cry.
They can sort of secrete from their eyes a little bit.
So although elephants wouldn't cry as such
from an emotional response or anything like that, they are incredibly emotional, emotionally aware animals
and their social structure is highly complex.
I say almost as complex as humans and elephants will actually mourn each other as well
if one of their family members dies, they will mourn and they will stay with each other for a while afterwards.
Why do elephants have a hole in their skull?
That's an interesting question.
So elephants have a hole in their skull because the trunk actually goes up through the face,
Above the eyes and in through the top of the skull.
But when people found elephant skulls hundreds of years ago, they would have seen these skulls
with the big hole in the top.
And that's actually where the myth of Cyclops came from.
Do elephants have good memory?
Elephants have very good memory.
They can remember things from very early on in their lives.
Their memory may not be as good as has been widely spoken about.
Sometimes, yeah, they do remember things that have happened in the past.
We have one elephant
that we sometimes bury their food to keep it interesting for them overnight,
and she will clock where we've buried the food, wait for all of the other elephants to fall asleep,
and then she'll go there later on and get it all when they're all asleep.
and they can't take it from her. But yeah, elephants do never forget.
Why do elephants have cushioned feet?
That's a really good question.
Elephants have cushioned feet to help spread their weight a bit more,
because one of the things you don't want is elephants walking too far on the front of their feet on their nails,
because that can cause lots of pressure, which can cause issues with their feet.
We pedicure our elephants pretty much weekly.
A few of us are sort of trained elephant farriers, if you like, and we make sure that their feet are in good condition so
they don't have any issues.
It's quite quite fun to do, actually.
How do elephants sleep?
So predominantly elephants sleep laying down.
They can sleep standing up
but it's much better for their joints if they sleep, laying down.
At the zoo in their habitat
they have sand mounds so they can sleep, leaning up against the mounds.
They don't have to go all the way down to the ground.
It's slightly easier to get back up again, especially if they're a little bit older.
Do elephants think humans are cute?
It's a funny one that that's been searched for quite a bit
because someone actually asked me that the other day and I didn't really have a good answer for them.
I think there was a study done that said that elephants release the same hormone or something
like that when they look at humans, as we do when we look at puppies, I think it was from my experience.
I don't think they find us that cute.
I think they see us as a good way to get food and not much else.
Why do elephants have big ears?
That's actually a really good question that I answer a lot of the time.
We get a lot of questions about that at the zoo
Elephants have big ears to help keep them cool.
As you can imagine, an elephant skin is really thick,
can be up to an inch and a half thick on the elbows and the knees.
But behind the ears, it's only about a millimetre, millimetre and a half thick, And the ear is full of blood vessels.
So what happens is the blood gets pumped to the ear.
They'll flap their ears cool it down.
And then that cool blood gets pumped around the rest of the body and helps keeps the elephants cool.
How do elephants mate?
So male elephants actually have a slightly prehensile penis,
and female elephants have what we call a vestibule, which hangs down sort of pointing straight
down. So when a male elephant mounts a female, his penis actually has to
bend up and under her.
to get inside that vestibule and go up.
So with great difficulty,
is probably a good answer to that question.
It's quite a knack to it that takes young males a little time to master.
Overall, these have been some really good questions.
There's been some in here that I get asked quite regularly,
But there's also been some that I don't get asked very often.
So I think it's quite good to be able to answer some of these questions and give people a better understanding of elephants in
general.