Page 96 - Viva Real English 3 : Ebook
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their babies. An elephant baby is called a calf. It weighs more than a grown
human.
Elephants must eat most of the day to get the amount of food they need.
They eat grasses and shrubs and twigs, leaves and bark from trees. An adult
elephant eats over 200 kilograms of food every day. Elephants must also
drink many litres of water.
It is the trunk that makes the elephant an interesting animal. The trunk is a
fusion of the nose and upper lip. Biologists say that an elephant’s trunk has
forty thousand muscles in it. It is the most important and useful part of the
body for an elephant. The trunk can pick up a thin blade of grass as well as
rip off strong branches of trees. (Elephants are plant-eaters.)
Elephants suck water up into the trunk and then blow it into their mouth.
That is fourteen litres of water at a time! Remember that we humans drink
only two litres of water in the whole day.
When swimming underwater, elephants use their trunk as a snorkel to draw
breathing air. When two elephants meet, they twist together their trunks to
greet each other, just the way we shake hands with friends.
The tusks give the elephant a majestic look. Do not confuse tusks with horns.
They are two upper front teeth. Elephants use their tusks to dig the earth for
water, scrape off bark from trees to eat it, and to move trees and branches
while clearing a path. But sadly, some people kill elephants to steal their
beautiful tusks, which are also called ivory.
Elephants have a powerful sense of hearing and smell. They can hear by
feeling the vibrations in the ground with their feet. There are many stories
about elephants’ memory and intelligence.
shrubs : small bushes biologists : scientists who study
twigs : small, thin branches of a plants and animals
tree snorkel : a breathing tube used
bark : the hard outer covering of a while swimming underwater
tree majestic : impressive and noble-
adult : grown-up looking
fusion : joining together vibrations : small and continuous
movements
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