Saturday, April 20, 2013

Reading 2

The elephant is the biggest animal that lives on land. Have you ever seen an elephant? They are very big and grey. They also have very long noses, called trunks, which they use to put food into their mouths. Elephants cannot see very well. Their eyes are on the side of their heads, so they have to move their whole body to look at things. All elephants have very good hearing, but they do not all have big ears. The elephants in Africa have very big ears. They use their ears to help them cool down on hot days. Elephants in other countries do not have such big ears. Elephants live in both Africa and Asia. They can live for about 70 years. That is a long time. Most of an elephant's life is spent eating. Elephants spend 75% of their day eating. They eat a lot of plants and trees. They do not eat other animals. Elephants also need to drink a lot of water. They drink more than 250 liters of water a day. That is like drinking more than 700 small bottles of water a day. Elephants do not like to be on their own. They travel around in groups, usually with about 10 other elephants. When new elephants are born, the whole group helps to look after the new baby elephants. Elephants are very lucky because other animals do not attack them. Sometimes baby elephants are attacked by lions and crocodiles. However, there is a bigger problem for elephants than lions and crocodiles. The bigger problem is humans. Humans kill many elephants. Parts of the elephant are worth a lot of money, so people want to get these parts and sell them. People also kill elephants when elephants come too close to houses or towns.

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