• At birth, an elephant calf typically weighs 230 pounds and stands over 2 ½ feet tall. Baby elephants are nearly blind at birth and rely upon their trunks and their mothers to help them.
• A newborn elephant can stand up shortly after being born.
• At first, a baby elephant can only wave its trunk in the air, suck on it or trip over it. Within a week or so it can start picking up small objects and food. No surprise that’s it’s so tricky: That trunk has more than 40,000 muscles in it.
• Mama elephants have it rough. Their pregnancies last 22 months, longer than any other land animal. And when their giant bundle of joy is born, it will nurse for up to three years, suckling more than 3 gallons of milk a day.