After the great apes, elephants are considered to be the world’s most intelligent land mammal. Elephants are known to have remarkable memories. They can also make and use tools & breaking off leafy branches and using them as fly swatters.
Elephants are sentient beings. They exhibit empathy towards other elephants who are in distress, offer protection to young or injured elephants and are capable of understanding deaths; for instance, they would stay by the dead elephant’s body and attempt to bury it.
Wild elephants are known as ecosystem engineers because they can modify habitats for many other animals. As they travel, they create pathways and when they dig the soil for nutrients, they create saltlicks. Some of these geological changes in the landscape can last for generations.
Elephant dung creates mini habitats for other wildlife. It provides a good shelter for frogs and invertebrates such as beetles, ants, centipedes, millipedes, scorpions, crickets, spiders and termites.
An elephant can poop up to 18 times in a day and produce about one tonne of dung per week. Elephant dung plays an important role in keeping the soil fertile and provides nutrient to seeds that the elephant swallowed and defecated out.
