It is believed to be a fact that elephants can not jump. They have weak leg muscles and weigh a few tonnes too – not the best combination for jumping!
Can Elephants Jump In The Air?
Elephants are the largest living land mammal – and they have legs like tree trunks to hold them up. These straight, cylindrical legs – one in each corner – help to hold up their immense weight: up to 7 tonnes for the largest elephants. Needless to say – these animals aren’t made for jumping.
Studies have shown that their leg structure has changed so much – to allow them to increase in size – that they just can’t leap into the air even if they wanted to. Like all 4-legged mammals – they have the same leg bones – but they are attached to very different muscles. Rather than the highly-angled bones of more-agile running mammals – elephants have all but straightened out their legs entirely. This leaves them with hardly any leverage for the ‘spring’ needed to leave the ground.
Even when running really fast and excitedly – as seen on many online videos – they can’t ever take all four feet off the ground. The most they can manage is 2 at a time – even when young. This is because they would be very unstable otherwise – and being so heavy they would most likely topple over if they only had one foot on the ground at any one time.
Best stay grounded!
Do Elephants Ever Need To Jump?
Animals – over the years – specialize in one or more main aspects of their lives at the expense of others – and the elephant has done just this. It got heavier and heavier and bigger and bigger. And when you are that big – why would you need to jump anyway?
Firstly, there is nowhere to jump over or on to in their savannah habitat anyway. Stepping over most hurdles or stretching across gaps is really easy for them being so big and all. Secondly – who do they need to jump out of the way of? Adult elephants have no real predators that they could evade – so they choose to attack instead – stamping and charging at anything they feel threatened by.
Elephants can quite easily stand up on two legs if they wanted to – although in the wild they don’t often have a need for this for more than a few seconds. Reaching some fresh tasty leaves just out of reach is one such instance – but usually, they just push the entire tree over instead.
More likely young elephants will be the ones who can’t reach the food their family is feeding on – and they are the lightest and more agile. Shame they can’t always use their trucks properly!
Can Baby Elephants Jump?
There are often comments online about baby elephants being able to jump in the air – as a happy bunny would? However, this isn’t actually true.
Even if you watch the happiest little baby elephant in the zoo – so excited about something new – or when playing with another baby elephant – they don’t leave the ground at all. No cute hopping around and binkying here or there – they just can’t do it. It isn’t in their nature. They will charge around the paddock doing the standard elephant fast-trot. Nothing more.
No matter how many baby elephant videos you watch – they just never jump.
Do Elephants Swim?
Strangely – even though they are too heavy to run – they can swim really well!
Not that there is often enough water around for adult elephants to have to swim – they can do it excellently – and over great distances if needed.
With their high body-fat ratio – and huge lungs – it isn’t a problem staying buoyant. Fossil evidence of elephants clocks them easily swimming 50km or more, and although they have to swim with their mouths underwater (due to their giant skulls) they can still breathe through their trunks – like giant hairy snorkels.
Baby elephants are fine at swimming too – thank goodness – as often the adults wade in too deep for the young elephants to touch the bottom. They have a bit more trouble figuring out how to control their trunks properly too – so it can be a really fun experience for them.
