Vocabulary Practice: Elephants

Elephants are amazing creatures and are mainly found on the ..... of Asia and Africa.

African elephants are the largest living ..... animal.

Elephants have large ....., that look like long noses, but they use these to pick up food and other material as well as drink water.

Both male and female African elephants also have large teeth, called ....., that stick out on either side of their mouths and are made of ivory.

Both African and Asian elephants have large ...... They can hear very well because of these but they also use them to cool themselves off in the hot, summer months by flapping them against their bodies like a large fan.

Both Asian and African elephants mainly eat fruit, grass, stems and leaves. Because they only eat plants, they are called ...... They have to eat about 400 to 500 pounds of food per day to survive.

Elephants are great swimmers and have few natural ...... This means that there are not many wild animals that hunt and/or kill elephants because they are so large, strong and intimidating.

Humans beings are the elephant's worst natural predator. Many people have trapped and killed wild elephants in order to take and, illegally, sell their ivory tusks on the black market. These people are criminals and are known as ......

Many people also illegally trap and use elephants for ..... purposes because elephants are so strong and they can do a lot of hard work for people.

There are not many elephants left in the ..... but many committed people are working to keep more elephants in their natural habitats.