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b"This week we're going to learn about elephants! Thanks to Damian, Pranav, and Richard from NC for the suggestions!\\n\\nFurther Reading:\\n\\nDwarf Elephant Facts and Figures\\n\\nAn Asian elephant (left) and an African elephant (right). Note the ear size difference, the easiest way to tell which kind of elephant you're looking at:\\n\\n\\n\\nBusiness end of an Asian elephant's trunk:\\n\\n\\n\\nAn elephant living the good life:\\n\\n\\n\\nCan't quite reach:\\n\\n\\n\\nElephant teef:\\n\\n\\n\\nA dwarf elephant skeleton:\\n\\n\\n\\nAn elephant skull does kind of look like a giant one-eyed human skull:\\n\\n\\n\\nShow transcript:\\n\\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\\n\\nThis week we\\u2019re going to learn about some elephants! We\\u2019ve talked about elephants many times before, but not recently, and we\\u2019ve not really gone into detail about living elephants. Thanks to Damian, Pranav, and Richard from NC for the suggestions. Damian in particular sent this suggestion to me so long ago that he\\u2019s probably stopped listening, probably because he\\u2019s grown up and graduated from college and started a family and probably his kids are now in college too, it\\u2019s been so long. Okay, it hasn\\u2019t been that long. It just feels like it. Sorry I took so long to get to your suggestion.\\n\\nAnyway, Damian wanted to hear about African and Asian elephants, so we\\u2019ll start there. Those are the elephants still living today, and honestly, we are so lucky to have them in the world! If you\\u2019ve ever wished you could see a live mammoth, as I often have, thank your lucky stars that you can still see an elephant.\\n\\nElephants are in the family Elephantidae, which includes both living elephants and their extinct close relations. Living elephants include the Asian elephant and the African elephant, with two subspecies, the African savanna elephant and the African forest elephant. The savanna elephant is the largest.\\n\\nThe tallest elephant ever measured was a male African elephant who stood 13 feet high at the shoulder, or just under 4 meters, which is just ridiculously tall. That\\u2019s two Michael Jordans standing on top of each other, and I don\\u2019t know how you would clone Michael Jordan or get one of them to balance on the other\\u2019s head, but if you did, they would be the same size as this one huge elephant. The largest Asian elephant ever measured was a male who stood 11.3 feet tall, or 3.43 meters. Generally, though, it\\u2019s hard to measure how tall or heavy a wild elephant is because first of all they don\\u2019t usually want anything to do with humans, and second, where are you going to get a scale big and strong enough to weigh an elephant? Most male African elephants are closer to 11 feet tall, or 3.3 meters, while females are smaller, and the average male Asian elephant is around 9 feet tall, or 2.75 meters, and females are also smaller. Even a small elephant is massive, though.\\n\\nBecause of its size, the elephant can\\u2019t jump or run, but it can move pretty darn fast even so, up to 16 mph, or 25 km/h. The fastest human ever measured was Usain Bolt, who can run 28 mph, or 45 km/h, but only for very short distances. A more average running speed for a person in good condition is about 6 mph, or 9.6 km/h, and again, that\\u2019s just for short sprints. So the elephant can really hustle. Its big feet are cushioned on the bottoms so that it can actually move almost noiselessly. And I know you\\u2019re wondering it, so yes, an elephant could probably be a good ninja if it wanted to. It would have to carry its sword in its trunk, though. The elephant is also a really good swimmer, surprisingly, and it can use its trunk as a snorkel when it\\u2019s underwater. It likes to spend time in the water, which keeps it cool, and it will wallow in mud when it can. The mud helps protect it from the sun and from insect bites. Its skin is thick but it\\u2019s also sensitive, and it doesn\\u2019t have a lot of hair to protect it.\\n\\nThe elephant is a herbivore that only eats plants, but it eats a lot of them."