Did you know giraffes get most of the water they need from the acacia leaves they eat?  They can go two weeks without drinking water because of the liquid they get from their food.  Their black tongues are coated to protect them from the thorns of the acacia tree.  Giraffes have four stomachs like a cow!

Giraffes tower 14 to 20 feet in the air, and an adult one weighs 1500 to 2600 pounds.  The life span of this animal is usually around 10 years, but some have lived to be 27 years old.  

They live in herds made up of two to fifty giraffes. Can you believe they only sleep twelve minutes or less a day!

Did you know elephants sleep standing up? 

The African elephant is the largest land animal in the world. Some male elephants grow to be thirteen feet tall.  Elephants weigh between ten and fourteen thousand pounds! Elephants smell, drink, eat, and wash themselves with their long trunks.  They use it much like a long hand, taking in as much as 3 gallons of water at a time with their trunks to be sprayed into their mouths for drinking or thrown on their backs to bathe. The trunk is amazing for its ability to pick up very small objects as well.   They carry heavy objects with their tusks, long teeth made of ivory. 

Most elephants live on the grassy plains of Africa in herds.  A herd consists of several related females and their young.  The group, which sometimes stays together for life, is usually led by the oldest female.  Males leave the herd at around age twelve, whereas female elephants usually stay with their mothers all of their lives.  Elephants travel in a single line with the young ones being led by an older elephant's tail.  

Elephants are great swimmers and can be seen rolling around in the mud to dry off.  They sometimes swim in ponds to cool off.  They also can cool off by fanning their ears.  When an elephant fans their ears, it cools off the blood in its ears which travels to other parts of the elephant's body and cools it off. 

Elephants can run up to 24 miles per hour and fight with their tusks.