World Elephant Day 2026: Amazing facts about elephants

August 12 is World Elephant Day.

The special day was created to encourage people to learn more about these magnificent creatures, and help protect them in the wild.

More than 100 elephant conservation charities come together each year to raise awareness of these incredible animals.

Keep reading to find out more about African and Asian elephants, and try our quiz to see how much you really know about the world's largest living mammals.

In Africa you can find the African bush elephant and the African forest elephant. There is only one species of Asian elephant.

The African Forest elephant is listed as critically endangered while the Savanna elephant and Asian elephant are listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Both species of African elephants are endangered due to people killing them for their ivory tusks. This is called poaching.

They are also at risk due to habitat loss and their habitat being broken up into smaller isolated patches. This is called fragmentation.

Habitat loss and fragmentation also puts Asian elephants at risk as well as negative interactions with humans.

Did you know elephants can be right or left-tusked, just like we can be right or left-handed?

You can usually tell which is their preferred tusk as it will be more worn down than the other one due to being used more.

Researchers have found that African elephants in the wild sleep an average of two hours a day.

They can also regularly go nearly two days without any sleep at all!

Imagine what you could do with all those extra hours!

African elephants have a sense of smell that is likely the strongest ever identified in a single species, according to a study by scientists from the University of Tokyo.

Elephants have nearly 2,000 special receptors that detect odours in the environment.

Elephants use other elephants' droppings as a way to keep on track when they're on their travels.

African savannah elephants, particularly those travelling alone, follow the scent of dung and urine left by others to make sure they're travelling in the right direction.